Liquidation of the Memorial in Russia. Exactly according to Orwell. Sunday of Tomáš Vodvářka
01/02/2022
Photo: Hans Štembera
Description: 20th century Russia serves as a perfect example of where the liquidation of democracy is leading. It is no wonder that comments of a similar nature bother the current government regime.
Russia’s Supreme Court has decided to dissolve the international NGO Memorial, which, among other things, mapped the crimes of the Stalinist regime, but also paid attention to the Russian present.
Every country in the world has bright moments in its history, of which it is proud and which strengthens the nation’s self-confidence. It also has the opposite, when the same country acted completely differently than is customary in a developed country. These dark moments should serve to teach that even small strikes towards minorities, to suppress the regime of dissenting opinions, but also just a religion or a different skin color to provoke a catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions.
A sensible and advanced society does not try to hide even these unpleasant events for it, because it knows that only knowing those triggering risk factors acts as a prevention. It is not for nothing that the former Czechoslovakia has an institute in both new states that examines and describes its own totalitarian past. We have the company Post bellum and its project Memory of the Nation, which captures the testimonies and lives of individuals living in the turbulent 20th century. Not only those who, so to speak, fate collapsed, but also those on the other side who helped keep them going.
20th century Russia serves as a perfect example of the demolition of democracy, the establishment of a brutal regime that has deprived tens of millions of people, whether through mass repairs, starvation or slave labor on crazy projects. Only thanks to Memorial do we learn that among the victims of the Stalinist murders were also Czechoslovak citizens who went to Russia to sit down or even to educate small Russian children. Thanks to Memorial, we also know of a number of people who were taken to the USSR after May 1945, where they perished in the camps, to be state soldiers or intellectuals with a contribution to the development of society, etc.
Of course, comments of a similar nature bother the current government regime. President Putin himself deplores the collapse of the USSR, without adding that the other fourteen states were attached to the body of violence, often at the cost of assassinating the legal leaders of countries that, of course, did not agree with the de facto annexation. Logically, in his view, the state leadership bothers him that there is someone who is trying to capture his country in all its complexity, including those areas that are not friendly to Russia. Designationing Memorial members as a foreign agent is a customary and shabby narrative that no reasonable person can trust.
It can therefore be assumed that the number of Russians will grow, who will again believe that the Katyn massacre was committed by the Nazis, that the numbers of hungry scholars in Ukraine are exaggerated and that those in the gulag somehow actually deserved it.
Orwell has already said that whoever controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. Which Vladimir Putin probably knows very well.
Entered by: Tomáš Vodvářka