Liquidation of Memorial* turns the country into the barracks

As Novye Izvestia has already reported, on December 28, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation achieved the liquidation of International Memorial for the absence of “foreign agent” markings in a number of publications.

According to the lawyer Henry Reznik, who participated in this process, he and his colleagues proved the illegality of the prosecutor's claim: according to him, such political cases are not based on considerations of the law and lead to the adoption of unjust decisions.

""Memorial" promotes the health of the nation, Reznik said. - To remove it now from the history of the country means to promote these ideas about how the state should be built. And the idea is this: the state is always right. This is a policy of patriotism"

Meanwhile, the leaders of the International Memorial issued a statement, which, in particular, says:

“...Today, the court finally named not a formal reason, but the real reason for the liquidation of International Memorial: the General Prosecutor’s Office claims that we are misinterpreting Soviet history,“ creating a false image of the USSR as a terrorist state”, “we are criticizing government bodies”... And the state, according to our opponents, is beyond criticism.

The decision of the Supreme Court once again confirmed that the history of political terror, organized and directed by the state authorities, remains for Russia not an academic topic of interest only to specialists, but an acute problem of our time. Our country needs an honest and conscientious reflection on the Soviet past; this is the guarantee of her future. It is ridiculous to believe that the judicial liquidation of Memorial International will remove this issue from the agenda. The entire Russian society needs to remember the tragedies of the past. And not only Russian: the memory of state terror unites all the former Soviet republics.

Of course, we will challenge the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in all ways available to us. And we will find legitimate ways to continue our work. A memorial is not an organization, it is not even a social movement. The memorial is the need of the citizens of Russia for the truth about its tragic past, about the fate of many millions of people. And no one will be able to "eliminate" this need..."

The court's decision literally blew up social networks, although all recent events indicated that Memorial would be liquidated. This event, and not a pandemic, according to experts, became the main event in Russia in the past year.

Analyst Grigory Sverdlin rightly believes that “the Memorial is the Solovetsky stone and many other monuments to the victims of political repression, this is the Return of Names action, these are the Last Address tablets, archives and books. This is a memory. And it cannot be "liquidated".

To close the Memorial is the same as to prohibit the memory of the victims of Nazism in Germany, and to close the Holocaust museums in Israel.

Force, dear colleagues. The memorial is all of us. nothing will come of these bastards. and let us, please, remember the details of this whole story. (...)

Now we are at the point of annihilation of public organizations - almost the last place where people can unite and do at least something regardless of the state. let's draw conclusions and next time we will bring the matter to the end, otherwise we will walk in a circle..."

Philosopher and culturologist Mikhail Epstein is confident that this event marks the end of post-Soviet Russia:

“It seems to me that with the closure of the Memorial, a great era in the life of the country, which was called“ post-Soviet Russia ”, is coming to an end. It lasted 30 years and 3 days: 12/26/1991 - 12/28/2021. "Post-Soviet" means the one that started from its past, left it behind, and the symbol of this self-overcoming was Memorial, founded by Sakharov.

What period is starting now? It is difficult to say, but most likely it already refers not to the past, but to the future, to the future. And what is behind this "before"? I really would not want it to be a cliff, an end, like Dostoevsky's: "... All of Russia stands at some final point, hovering over the abyss...""

Journalist Ilya Barabanov gives an example of the attitude of the really great states of the world to their past:

“It does not occur to the Germans to deny the crimes of Nazism, and seventy years later they are experiencing this national trauma and are trying to somehow make amends.

The British once cut off the king's head and then built institutions for several centuries to make everything work.

The crimes of the Belgians in the Congo or the Americans against the Indians are a reason for reflection and further reflection. In Spain, writers and filmmakers are still turning to the topic of the Inquisition to understand how it was possible: to send thousands of people to the fire, even if the current Spaniards already have a very indirect relationship to them.

The history of all great countries is very complex and contradictory. It is only from such ups and downs, constant mistakes that great countries with stable societies are born.

A country in which the only correct understanding of history is approved by people who do not understand anything in history, and any deviation from the general line is threatened with prison, can be neither a great nor a superpower. You can be Turkmenistan, there is also a lot of gas, you can be snowy Nigeria with a nuclear baton, you can be a raw material appendage of China or just a big gas station.

For 20 years there was every chance to build a successful society in a rich country, and as a result, there will be a burnt field, a parade ground of a federal scale, a large barracks named after General Zolotov..."

The publicist Maksim Trudolyubov is sure that by liquidating Memorial, the Russian state is reconsidering its attitude to history and to people:

“The modern civil society, for which Memorial is one of the foundations, appeared earlier than the present state. In the late 1980s and early 90s, there was a short but important period, when society - and above all Memorial - already existed, but the Russian state did not exist yet.

Memorial* deals with this currency - restoring the value of human dignity. Thanks to the Memorial, those whose lives and dignity were paid for by the USSR rise from the dust and return at least in the form of names. For the Russian Federation, this is the most meaningful common cause. This work is not finished and will continue.

Historian Sergey Volkov is touched by the innocent masochism shown by the Russian authorities in this case:

“What amazed me in the story of the liquidation of Memorial was the wording. This is "depriving citizens of the right to freedom of information" and "creating a false image of the Soviet Union as a terrorist state." The scoop, of course, was such (in terms of the scale of unprecedented repressions against its own population "per capita" yielding perhaps to Pol Pot's Cambodia), and the fact that the obstacle to freedom of information does not come from the authorities that control 99% of the information space (and praise the scoop in every possible way), but from a half-strangled "foreign agent" - it's very nice.

But the funniest thing is something else. "Memorial", undoubtedly, was an opposition organization that shit the current Russian Federation much more than the formally long-dead Sovka - supporting all its enemies - from North Caucasian separatism to modern dissidents. In general, there was something to close it for, and the very fact of liquidation is not at all surprising. But that was not what he was charged with.

Moreover, the Russian Federation is full of mass media, websites, blogs, etc., where the Russian regime and Putin personally are scolded with the last words, attributing even such acts that clearly "distort the historical truth." But nobody has yet been shut down for “creating a false image of the Russian Federation as a totalitarian (antipopular, criminal, or even the same“ terrorist ”, etc.) state”.

And such a peculiar, theatrical, I would say, masochism, when it would seem that it is quite relevant and concerns its own power - against the background of touching concern for the historical reputation of the Soviets - is truly touching. And she says much more about the Russian government than she is inclined to talk about herself ... "

And publicist Ilya Vaitsman warns:

“Apparently, for storage and“ distribution ”of such things as“ The Gulag Archipelago ”,“ Kolymskie Stories ”or“ Steep Route ”will now again be given a time limit under the article on“ slandering the Soviet system ”. Not a joke."

* Recognized as a foreign agent in the Russian Federation