Ships of victims of political repression will come for us. “The terrible past cannot be justified by any higher so-called benefits of the people
In Moscow on October 30, on the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression, a monument to the memory of victims of political repression “Wall of Sorrow” will be unveiled. The ceremony will be attended by a reserve FSB colonel and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who, TASS emphasizes, several years ago supported the initiative of human rights activists to erect a monument and issued a corresponding decree.
The Kremlin press service reports that the head of state and members of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights (HRC), at the end of the Council meeting scheduled for Monday, “will take part in the opening ceremony of the Wall of Sorrow memorial to victims of political repression.”
Vladimir Putin is not the first head of state to raise the issue of perpetuating the memory of victims of political repression in the country. Thus, a similar idea was expressed by the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev in 1961 at the XXII Party Congress. In 1990, the Moscow City Council adopted a resolution to install such a monument at Lubyanka. In the same year, in front of the NKVD (FSB) building, a granite boulder was installed, brought from the territory of the former Solovetsky special purpose camp in the Arkhangelsk region. And the day of its opening began to be celebrated as the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression.
The date was determined in memory of the events of 1974, when political prisoners of the Mordovian and Perm camps, as well as the Vladimir prison, went on a hunger strike to protest against political repression in the USSR, and Andrei Sakharov and the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights told Western journalists about political prisoners at a press conference . Subsequently, throughout the country - at the sites of mass executions, territories of former camps, settlements of special settlers, etc. Hundreds of monuments, memorial signs, chapels and walls of memory were opened.
— Memorial (@MemorialMoscow) October 29, 2017
The idea of erecting a monument in the capital to the memory of victims of political repression in Moscow was defended by the head of the Presidential Council for Human Rights, Vladimir Fedotov. Vladimir Putin signed a corresponding order to the Moscow government in December 2014. Two months later, the project competition started.
A total of 336 projects for a monument to victims of political repression were created. The winner of the competition was sculptor Georgy Frangulyan. Second place went to “Prism” by Sergei Muratov, and third place went to “Torn by Fate” by Elena Bocharova. The President of the Russian Federation signed a decree on the construction of the monument on September 30, 2015. The total cost of the project was 460 million rubles, of which 300 million rubles were paid by the Moscow government. The collection of the missing amount continued for two years. Vladimir Fedotov has repeatedly pointed out the “absolutely disregardful” attitude of federal television channels and major philanthropists towards the project. At the same time, many residents of the capital and regions transferred donations in the amount of 100 and 500 rubles.
The "Wall of Sorrow" memorial was installed in a park with an area of 5.4 thousand square meters. meters on the inner side of the Garden Ring, at the intersection of Sadovo-Spasskaya Street and Academician Sakharov Avenue. The monument, 6 meters high and 35 meters long, is a spatial double-sided bas-relief made of 80 tons of bronze, representing an endless combination of schematic, both flat and three-dimensional human figures soaring up and reaching upward. On the planes of the bas-relief one word is written - “Remember” - in different languages. It is complemented by granite compositions that figuratively refer to dungeons and echelons, and the square itself is planned to be paved with the inclusion of stones from places of imprisonment of repressed prisoners.
The day before, October 29, at the Solovetsky Stone in Moscow, victims of political repression "Return of Names". Anyone who wished to take part in the action was able to read the names of several of the 40 thousand Muscovites executed.
Until the end of the 1980s, information about those repressed was a state secret. In 1988-1989, the media began publishing the first lists of victims of repression. In many regions, on the initiative of the Memorial Society and with its participation, they began to prepare “Books of Memory” - special publications containing not only names, but also short curriculum vitae about the victims, and sometimes photographs. In 1998, the society began to create a unified database based on information from regional “Books of Memory”. In 2007, the latest, 4th, edition of “Victims of Political Terror in the USSR” was published (with additions as of December 13, 2016), containing more than 2.6 million names.
The Federal Archive Agency (Rosarkhiv), the State Archives of the Russian Federation and the Hoover Institution of War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University (California, USA) prepared and published a collection of documents in 7 volumes, “The History of Stalin’s Gulag. The late 1920s - the first half of 1950.” 's" (2004). Memorial's "Return of Names" campaign was held for the tenth time this year.
— DW (in Russian) (@dw_russian)
On the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression, in Moscow, at the intersection of Academician Sakharov Avenue and the Garden Ring, the “Wall of Sorrow” was erected - the first nationwide monument to the victims of political repression. Decades of bashful silence about the “camp topic” and the fear of talking “about it” even in the family are behind us. The “Wall of Sorrow” changes the balance of power with reinforced concrete.
In two different parts of Russia - on Kolyma and Solovki - rocks with the same words carved into them with crowbars rest into the sea: “Ships will come for us! 1953.” And then in 2017 the last ship came for them.
Let’s assume that the “Wall of Sorrow” is the last ship that came for those who could not return in 1953, who died,” says Mikhail Fedotov, Chairman of the Russian Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights. - Now the ship of our memory came for them.
The “Wall of Sorrow” consists of symbolic corridors-arches, after passing through which everyone divides history for themselves into “before” - when everyone could become a victim of the “Great Terror”, and “after” - when the “Wall of Sorrow” opened in Moscow gives inside a person to grow in understanding that the trauma of repression must be remembered and carried as part of one’s roots.
Not to divide into victims and executioners, not to take revenge, and not even to “forgive and forget everything,” but to make history, such as it is, part of the genetic memory of the nation.
Schoolchildren from the Rostov region earned 75 thousand rubles for the monument with their labor
It’s hard, slow and painful, but this is what’s happening: according to the Memory Foundation, the monument to the state cost 300 million rubles, and the amount of voluntary donations from the people reached 45,282,138.76 rubles. And although by erecting the “Wall” society recognizes the policy of terror and repression as a crime, the people, through their participation in raising funds for the monument, do not simply comprehend the tragedy. People donate more than just savings to the Memory Fund.
Those who don’t have them, for example, pieces of bronze, like Ivan Sergeev, a pensioner from the Saratov region. Or the smallest contribution to the “Wall” - 50 rubles - was made by a pensioner from Yoshkar-Ola, who wished to remain anonymous. She signed the details: “The daughter of a repressed person. Forgive me as much as I can.”
But the most significant private contribution to the “Wall of Sorrow” was the money earned by the children of the village of Kirovskaya, Kagalnitsky district, Rostov region - 75 thousand rubles.
The Rostov story shocked me,” says Roman Romanov, director of the Gulag History Museum. - For me, she is an example of the fact that young people do not want “at any cost” or “to quickly forget terror.” They want to know their history and put together it through their hard work. For me, 75 thousand rubles earned by children is an answer to those who want to create a tourist cluster with the “flavor” of the zone and camps on the basis of the Gulag camps. With barracks where you can live in an “economy” option, with bunks where you can sleep; with tin dishes and “camp” food. Children from Rostov silently convince with their actions: “the aroma of the Gulag zone” or the now fashionable quests on this topic are the road to historical oblivion. And what Rostov schoolchildren and hundreds of thousands of donors did for the “Wall of Sorrow” is the path to real living history.
Romanov admits that he trusts these people. They will definitely be able to find in the memory safes and put in place terrible figures: according to the Memory Foundation, 20 million people went through the Gulag system, over a million were shot (the figure is not final - “RG”), more than 6 million became victims of deportations and exiles.
Direct speech
Honest history forms a united nation
Natalia Solzhenitsyna, President of the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Foundation:
The fates of those who went through the Gulag should not remain family stories. They must and will now become part of national history. We cannot afford not to know our recent history - it is like going forward blindfolded, and therefore inevitably stumbling. This is what is happening to us, since during the era of the Great Terror the foundations of a divided society were laid. It will remain split until we begin to restore honest history. An honest history forms a united nation. And without unity and spiritual healing, simple economic revival is impossible.
A nationwide monument to the victims of repression is a step towards reconciliation. Because reconciliation is impossible on the basis of oblivion.
“Oblivion is the death of the soul,” said the sages. The "Wall of Sorrow" is based on the idea of memory. And to feel or not to feel guilt depends on the development of consciousness, conscience, and understanding. And this is a personal feeling, not a collective one.
Our country is completely different today! With all the shortcomings of our existence, going back seventy years ago is no longer possible. And, probably, descendants should not keep the wolf scars of separation that that time left. We need an honest chronicle of victories and defeats.
Such a history of Russia in the 20th century can be respected.
Point of view
From varnished history to genuine history
Vladimir Lukin, member of the Federation Council:
I am convinced that the most important thing today is to connect the broken historical mosaic into something whole. To do this, we need to overcome both the Stalinist interpretation of history and the apologetics of anti-Sovietism. The “Wall of Sorrow” on this path reduces the tone of the fierceness of discussions and brings us closer to understanding the greatness of the event. Zhou Enlai, a prominent Chinese figure, when asked whether he considered the French Revolution of 1789 great, replied: “It’s too early to judge. Let another hundred years will pass"And so we are only at the beginning of society’s journey through varnished history to the present.
No matter how much we perpetuate the victims of political repression, everything in 1789 inevitably comes down to the question: “How many people died?” I always answer: “We will never know.” It's not just the secrecy of some of the archives. And it’s not that when the Shvernik-Shatunovskaya commission reported to the 20th Congress of the CPSU that from 1934 to 1941 alone 19 million 800 thousand people were repressed, and of them 7 million 100 thousand were shot, the congress was horrified and closed these figures. And it’s not even that historians, after execution pits were discovered near the Peter and Paul Fortress of St. Petersburg, where nameless victims of February 25, 1917 lie, propose to consider this date the beginning of mass repressions of the twentieth century in Russia. But the point is the Great and Tragic whole, which we must assemble from the broken historical mosaic.
Promotion "RG"
Internet project "RG" "Know, do not forget, condemn. And - forgive" gathered an audience of reconciliation
The action to create the “Wall of Sorrow,” Vladimir Kaptryan said in an interview with RG, “is only the first step towards restoring historical justice and the desecrated connection of times. And also the restoration of a terrible understanding: everyone at that time could turn out to be a hero, an “enemy of the people,” and an executioner. In war it’s like in war. Not everyone at the front was a hero either. Therefore, it seems to me to be honest towards the victims of the Gulag and towards ourselves, first on the day of the installation of the “Wall of Sorrow” in Moscow, and then on this day every year to go out into the streets for a memorial rally. Like "Immortal Regiment". Let it be "Memory Regiment". I would join it. ()
One of the most positive and passionate stories is the story of the “anti-Soviet” Yuri Naydenov-Ivanov. He told how three comrades - 19-year-old student Yuri Naydenov-Ivanov, 20-year-old Evgeniy Petrov and Valentin Bulgakov in 1951 were found with the magazine "America". Naydenov also corresponded with friends from Odessa. All three were accused of anti-Soviet propaganda and of “wanting to cross the Black Sea by boat.” Everyone was given ten years in the camps. Petrov ended up in the mines of the North, Bulgakov - in Siblag, Naydenov - in the mines of Kazakhstan's Karaganda. He spoke about the secrets of survival in the camps. And how he accidentally got a “life number” that saved him. ()
Another story - about how victims of repression won cases even against the NKVD and moved into their apartments when returning from the camps (" "), formed a golden fund of video interviews of stories "My Gulag".
Now they are Regiment historical memory. It was these stories that gave rise to a large author’s documentary project and series feature films and plays that will be filmed over the next five to seven years. All this will be done under the creative direction of film director Pavel Lungin and artistic director of the Theater of Nations Evgeny Mironov.
Direct speech
Each of us has a fragment of the "Wall"
The arches that cut through the entire length of the monument are made in such a way that everyone has to bend down to pass. Bending down, the man’s eyes stare at the tablet: “Remember!” Like an inaudible prayer, the word is written in twenty-two languages - in fifteen languages of the peoples of the former USSR, in five UN languages and in German - one of the languages of the European Union.
"Remember!" you have to carry thirty-five meters - the entire length of the monument. Everyone will be able to walk through it and feel like they are in the victim’s place. Thus, “The Wall” reproduces the feeling of the sword of Damocles. Only in this way, with the understanding that each of us has a fragment of the “Wall”, can we move on. But it is not clear when we can straighten our backs. It is unclear how long it will take for that fragment to come out. For it to come out, one must personally understand the phenomenon of the Gulag and make it part of the genetic memory of the nation.
I would like each piece of "The Wall of Sorrow" to convey the state of tragedy. Yes, her figures are faceless. The “death scythe” made them this way. The victims of the terror of the 30-50s were and remain too numerous and often anonymous. Their twisted destinies and erased faces are a symbol of tragedy.
Following director Gleb Panfilov, who was adapting Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” director Pavel Lungin began searching for material about the era of the camps. Today he tells RG why each of us will have to go through the purgatory of memory.
Pavel Semenovich, have you decided what the film will be about?
Pavel Lungin: When I think about how to make films, I look for humanistic supports. I am from that generation that still believes in people and is not ready to go into a total postmodern tragedy. Yes, you can make a movie about the 1953 Gorlag uprising in Norilsk and the 1954 Kengir uprising of political prisoners. In Norilsk alone, according to archives, up to 16,000 people went on strike. But this is the end of the camp system, and their essence crystallized inside a person earlier. He couldn't help but resist her from within. How? This is what I want to make a film about. But I have not yet found the history of the confrontation. The more I read, the more often thoughts appear: “Who am I? Where do I have so much audacity to touch on a topic filled with blood and torment?” Sometimes I just freeze in horror. I want to forget the Gulag forever and not know about it. This is an instinctive fear of the scale of the tragedy. I’m also afraid - will I have enough strength to show the depth of the phenomenon? It is a crime to ennoble the Gulag, but it is also a crime to deprive people of hope.
And in my film there will definitely be a funny Gulag. And a woman's view of the camp
You don’t have a script, but there is Solzhenitsyn, there is Shalamov, there is “The Abode” by Zakhar Prilepin...
Pavel Lungin:...Zakhar Prilepin wrote a very powerful novel about Solovki. His talent as a writer is beyond ideology, which gives the novel such characters that wow... I would love to film it. But, in my opinion, there are no copyrights anymore. Although for Prilepin, like Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov, the Gulag is hopeless. And in my film there will definitely be a funny Gulag. And a woman's view of the camp. I haven’t populated the picture with stories yet, but I remember well my conversations with Andrei Sinyavsky. In France he talked all the time about the camp. Once, while visiting him, I couldn’t stand it: “You remember the camp as if it was something better.” Sinyavsky didn’t even think about arguing with me. His camp friendships remained; people with whom he was imprisoned came to visit him in Paris. They sincerely believed that in their case “a mistake had occurred.” “Yes,” he answered, “in a sense, it was an ideal life. There is no money, no women, no career, no nothing. You are, as it were, cleared of everything and can communicate with people as with purified entities.” This is a shock on the verge of spiritual hunger and spiritual purity. I'm looking for him for a film. It's like some people remember war as some kind of cleansing experience. It’s like you’ve been dipped in sulfuric acid, but you’re alive.
Academician Likhachev also admitted at one time that the Bolsheviks were right in the value system they created when he, who did not accept Soviet power, was sent to the Gulag for re-education. Doesn't this position provoke revenge among the executioners? Here it is already documentary filmed about Rodion Vaskov - the creator and godfather of Solovki and the Magadan gold mines. In the film, his son Gritsian, with tears in his eyes, asks why his father, at the end of his life, was sent to the Gulag for five years following a denunciation? After all, “he created around himself not terror, but production, gave people work, food, meaning... He was able to avoid becoming a warden.” What would you answer him?
Pavel Lungin: The twentieth century is rich in such phenomena. The century has given powerful attempts to create a new man. The USSR, then Germany, China had its own experience, the last spasm was in Cambodia. In the USA, after 1929, labor camps were also created, but they did not forge a new person there. And remaking it is a dispute with God about man. Dostoevsky brilliantly conveyed this confrontation in The Grand Inquisitor. With him, Christ is not just imprisoned. The Inquisitor tempts Christ with the fact that freedom is the greatest test and punishment for a person, that a person wants nothing more than to have his freedom taken away. Then he doesn't have to make a choice. And freedom is not needed. It was precisely this that the camp took away.
But attempts to remake a person always ended in failure. After all, first you need to make minced meat out of it. In this sense, of course, camps are a school of education. Whom? The son of the Gulag creator answers well. He sincerely believes that among the executioners his father was the best and kindest, cutting off heads with one blow, and not with two. This is one of the fruits of “upbringing”, when the criteria of good and evil are lost. Instead of a “new man,” we received such a level of his decomposition when we must admit: the idea of total re-education is harmful. Man is “God’s creature,” a creature that cannot be sculpted by a third-party sculptor or any other kind of plastic surgery. Interference with human nature is the greatest danger that awaits us. And the unspoken and unawareness of the Gulag experience gives rise to the incomprehensible phenomenon of guardsmen, who then dress up as victims.
Wasn't the policy of repression often just a pretext for recruiting into the labor army?
The wall of grief is an agreement that repression is evil. This is the beginning of spiritual cleansing
Is the “Wall of Sorrow” monument, which stood in Moscow on October 30, 2017, a step of the people towards the saint?
Pavel Lungin: Grief for me is a consensus. The wall is society's agreement that evil has been committed, and the understanding that we caused it to ourselves. This is just the beginning of spiritual cleansing. And the fact that the monument is being donated simple people, is a sign of our recovery. Even if it’s 15 kopecks, the whole country should chip in for the Wall. The desire to pass through the Wall is the germ of awareness, repentance and redemption. We no longer pretend that there is no problem.
But we pretend, often sincerely believing, that someone else needs repentance and atonement, but not me. In this sense, the story of Muscovite Vera Andreeva is indicative. In the series of films “My Gulag” of the Gulag History Museum, she said that in 1937 her beloved uncle Vanya wrote a denunciation against his father and her grandfather Dmitry Zhuchkov for the fact that “the nobleman does not recognize the revolution.” But my father even won the case against the NKVD. The son, expelled from the family, died in 1942 defending Sevastopol from the Nazis. “He deserves to die,” his father said about him. “My grandfather was already lying in the ground,” recalls Vera Sergeevna, “and my relatives, a member of the CPSU, repeated his words: “How could you go over to their side?” But I don’t know. I remember my grandfather and understand: I did not forgive that government, "like the grandfather did not forgive his son. I cannot and do not know how to forgive such a thing." How to forgive this?
Pavel Lungin: If I could explain it in words, I shouldn't have made the film "The Island." I only know that the work of repentance is ascetic. It is not given to everyone. But I believe that feelings of shame and remorse make a person a person. A person begins with a feeling of shame, with pain for the misfortunes of others, with compassion. But I am in the same condition as society. I look around and don’t see that society or I are driven by an awareness of past history, pain, misfortune. Sometimes it seems to me that if “The Island” came out now, it wouldn’t be heard. It feels like we've stepped over something. The brain has this peculiarity: if a person from two to five years old does not speak, then he will be like Mowgli. They will find him, wash him off, and he will even speak, but there will be no freedom of speech. The brain was formed outside of language. So it is with the trauma of the Gulag. Maybe a time has passed when the wound was alive and easier to treat? But with the tragedy of the Gulag we are still embarking on the path of awareness. We need time, patience and freedom. New generations will come to replace those who were killed and who left. It seems to me that this evolution is underway, but for now we are like centaurs... The free part of us sees life around us, reads a lot, thinks... But the other part of us is slowly, hard, but changing. Including thanks to projects such as “Wall of Sorrow”, but it is changing...
Photo: Victoria Odissonova / Novaya Gazeta
“The terrible past cannot be erased from the national memory. Moreover, it is impossible to justify it with anything: no higher so-called benefits of the people,” President Vladimir Putin said at the opening ceremony of the “Wall of Sorrow” monument dedicated to the victims of political repression in the USSR. - When we're talking about about repressions, about the death and suffering of millions of people, then it is enough to visit the Butovo training ground and other mass graves of victims of repression, of which there are many in Russia, to understand: there can be no justification for these crimes.”
The opening of the monument - a thirty-meter double-sided bronze bas-relief by sculptor Georgy Frangulyan - took place on the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression. In addition to politicians, human rights activists, historians, cultural figures and clergy, the victims of illegal repression and their children - just a few very elderly people - came to the opening of the monument.
In his speech, Putin said that the consequences of the repressions are still felt; entire classes and peoples, workers, peasants, engineers, military leaders, priests, government officials, scientists and cultural figures have been subjected to them. “The repressions spared neither talent, nor services to the Motherland, nor sincere devotion to it. Each could have been brought against far-fetched and absolutely absurd charges,” he said and added that the very memory, clarity and unambiguous position regarding these gloomy events “serves as a powerful warning to their repetition.”
At the end of his speech, Putin quoted the words of Natalia Solzhenitsyna, who also came to the opening: “Know, remember, condemn and only then forgive.” After which the president said that it was impossible to call for settling scores and “again pushing society to the dangerous line of confrontation.” The president did not mention Stalin’s name in his speech, nor did he mention any of the perpetrators of political repression.
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In turn, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Kirill said at the opening that “monuments are needed for human healing.” “Coming here, remembering the tragic events of our history, people should not feel despondency and despair, they should think about their descendants and about what kind of country and what kind of history they will leave as a legacy,” the patriarch said.
The last speaker at the opening was Vladimir Lukin, a member of the Federation Council and Chairman of the Foundation for the Memory of Victims of Political Repression.
After a minute of silence and the laying of flowers at the monument, it was opened to visitors. Let us remind you: the monument is located at the intersection of Sakharov Avenue and the Garden Ring.
direct speech
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“Crippled destinies call to our memory from the memorial wall”
Speech by Federation Council member Vladimir Lukin at the opening of a monument to victims of political repression
- A person is weak... And at these moments I can’t help but think about the fate of my family. Especially two women. Both are my grandmothers.
One of them, besides my mother, had three more sons. The elder was brutally killed in one of the skirmishes of the civil war. The life of the second one ended nearby, in Kommunarka. He was included in one of the execution lists of 1937, signed by five then members of the PB of the Communist Party, headed personally by Stalin. The third, despite the reservation given to prominent scientists, joined the ranks of the militia and died defending Moscow in the fall of 1941. Three sons - three deaths.
The youngest daughter - my mother - was arrested in the same year, 1937, immediately after my birth. She was tortured, just like my father. But they were lucky: in 1938, after the fall of Yezhov, they were released, and they both managed to take part in the defense of Moscow. My father was the commissar of the 7th Bauman Militia Division, the monument to whose fighters, as many of you know, stands on the 242nd km of the Minsk Highway.
And his younger brother was forced, after my father’s arrest, to renounce him in order to save himself and the rest of his family.
Imagine the feelings of my second grandmother, whose sons never shook hands with each other, even at her grave.
And there were thousands, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of families in our country with a similar or similar fate. It is no longer possible to count.
It is they, their crippled destinies, appealing to our memory, our conscience from the memorial wall.
The 20th century for our country is a century of great victories, but also of great tragedies. Our society and the younger generation know quite well about the most important great victory, although there are some gaps here too.
About the main page great tragedy- mass repressions, terrible terror associated with the revolution, civil war, Stalin's totalitarian dictatorship, the younger generation knows little.
Is that bad. Ignorance is not an argument, Spinoza said. No wise lessons can be learned from ignorance.
Some of our citizens believe that dredging up the bloody past is unpatriotic. I am convinced that this opinion is wrong.
Motherland and Truth are concepts of equal magnitude. You cannot love the Motherland without loving the Truth. Without distinguishing good from evil, truth from untruth, fanaticism from humanity. The sovereign right to life, security, freedom and personal happiness of a person is no less important than any sovereignty. It is remarkable that our current Constitution begins precisely with this normative provision.
“All progress is reactionary if man collapses,” said the poet.
Only free man can be a true patriot!
Current and future generations of our citizens must, firstly, know about this terrible drama. Not wanting to know is intellectual cowardice, a grave moral sin. And great danger. After all, hiding the truth is a sure way to relapse into tragedy.
Secondly, it is important to remember what happened to the country in the twentieth century. Remember the victims of mass state terror - The best way get rid of the illusion that all the country’s complex problems can be solved quickly and sharply - as they liked to say at that time - with a dashing “cavalry attack”.
Thirdly, we must clearly, decisively and irreversibly condemn the actions of those who spun the “red wheel” of mass terror. There are no and cannot be excuses for them. Even taking into account the fact that in this bloody carnival, their executioners also disappeared after their victims.
And finally, fourthly - and this is the most difficult thing - we need to try to forgive the participants in this terrible historical drama.
Of course, to forgive not their terrible deeds, but their tragic mistakes that led to them, their self-deceptions, their utopian fantasies.
In my opinion, to forgive means, first of all, to try to expel from one’s own souls the atmosphere of hatred and intolerance towards everything different, towards everything “not one’s own”, towards everything “incomprehensible”.
Get rid of the sweet but poisonous illusion of your own unique rightness and infallibility.
We cannot change the past. We cannot pretend that it did not exist at all. But we can, remembering the past, try to suppress the viruses of anger and hatred in ourselves.
And thereby block access to the present and future to the bloody passions of the past.
The memory of the terrible tragedy that occurred on our land in the twentieth century should become part of our historical memory. We, the heirs of the victims of mass repression, are grateful to all those who contributed to the creation of the Memory Monument.
October 30, at Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression, President of Russia Vladimir Putin took part in the opening of the memorial " Wall of Sorrow" The memorial is a bas-relief depicting human figures that symbolize the repressed. The word " Remember" on 22 languages. The area around the memorial is paved with stones brought from former camps and prisons. Gulag.
At the opening of the “Wall of Sorrow,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said that political repression is a crime that cannot be justified by any of the highest benefits of the people.
Today in the capital we are opening the “Wall of Sorrow” - a grandiose, piercing monument both in meaning and in its embodiment. “He appeals to our conscience, feelings, to understanding the period of repression, the compassion of their victims,” Putin said during the opening of the memorial.
The head of state noted that during the Stalinist terror, millions of people were declared enemies of the people, shot or maimed. The President emphasized that this terrible past cannot be erased from the national memory. However, as Putin said, remembering the victims of repression does not mean pushing society towards confrontation:
Now it is important to rely on the values of trust and stability,” said the Russian leader.
Vladimir Putin addressed words of gratitude to the authors of the memorial, as well as to everyone who invested in its creation, and to the Moscow government, which accounted for the bulk of the costs. Together with the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill and mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin the President walked around the memorial and laid flowers at it.
Also present at the opening ceremony of the “Wall of Sorrow” was a senator, Doctor of Historical Sciences, former Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation Vladimir Lukin. He emphasized the importance of the appearance of the memorial and said that he dreams that future presidents, guarantors of the Constitution Russian Federation, and the future ombudsmen of our country took the oath to the people right here, at this wall, in front of these tragic faces. However, he believes that this dream is most likely utopian.
Earlier, the media published an appeal from a group of Soviet dissidents and former political prisoners who called not to participate in the opening of the “Wall of Sorrow” and other commemorative events organized by the Kremlin. They stated that the current government in Russia only verbally regrets the victims of the Soviet regime, but in reality continues political repression and suppresses civil liberties in the country:
The victims of political repression cannot be divided into those to whom monuments can already be erected and those who can be ignored for now,” the dissidents emphasized.
The “Wall of Sorrow” memorial, dedicated to the memory of victims of political repression, is located at the intersection Sakharov Avenue And Garden Ring. The initiator of the installation of the object was Memory Fund. The creator of the “Wall of Sorrow” is a sculptor Georgy Frangulyan.
On October 30, 2017, the opening of the national memorial “Wall of Sorrow”, dedicated to the victims of political repression, took place in Moscow. Soviet era, reports IA Regnum.
The opening ceremony was attended by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Kirill, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. They said solemn words and laid flowers at the monument.
The opening of the “Wall of Sorrow” occurred after a meeting of the Council for the Development of Civil Society, at which issues related to ensuring environmental and voting rights citizens. Vladimir Putin, speaking at this meeting, emphasized that the year of the centenary of the revolution should draw a line under the split in society.
“The very memory, clarity and unambiguous position regarding these dark events serves as a powerful warning against their repetition. The terrible past of repression cannot be erased from the memory of the people and cannot be justified by anything,” Vladimir Putin noted.
According to the president, the consequences of political repression “are still being felt,” but this is not a reason to settle scores. The monument, located on Sakharov Avenue and representing a thirty-meter bronze bas-relief, was described by Vladimir Putin as “grand and piercing.”
After the president's speech, a funeral composition was performed by the choir. Then the cordon around the monument was lifted, and everyone was able to enter the territory. People laid flowers, prayed and lit candles. Opponents of the “Wall of Sorrow” also gathered at the ceremony; some organized single pickets.
Memorial "Wall of Sorrow"
The “Wall of Sorrow” memorial was erected in accordance with Decree of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin dated September 30, 2015 No. 487 “On the construction of a memorial to victims of political repression.”
In 2015 State Museum history of the Gulag held a competition for memorial projects. The jury included 25 public figures and human rights activists: L.M. Alekseeva, N.D. Solzhenitsyn, V.P. Lukin, D.A. Granin and others. A total of 336 projects were presented. The winner of the competition was the project of sculptor G.V. Frangulyan "Wall of Sorrow".
To raise funds for the creation and installation of the memorial, the Foundation “Perpetuating the Memory of Victims of Political Repression” was established. The foundation has collected more than 43 million rubles in donations. The Moscow Government also took part in financing the project.
The composition of the square on which the memorial is installed includes “weeping stones” brought from 82 regions of Russia. The inscription “Know... Do not forget... Condemn... Forgive!” is placed on the stones! by N.D. Solzhenitsyn.
The “Wall of Sorrow” is a double-sided high-relief wall with several arches, composed of the outlines of numerous figures symbolizing those killed as a result of repression. The length of the wall is 30 meters, height - 6. Along the edges of the monument there are two relief tablets with the word “Remember” written in 22 languages (in 15 languages of the former republics of the USSR, in German and 6 official UN languages).
The monument was erected at the intersection of Academician Sakharov Avenue and the Garden Ring.
The Wall of Sorrow memorial is open to everyone.
Memory of the victims of political repression
The process of rehabilitation of victims of mass political repression in the USSR from the late 1920s to the early 1950s. began after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953.
In 1961, at the XXII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), First Secretary of the Central Committee (Central Committee) of the CPSU Nikita Khrushchev first voiced the idea of erecting a monument to the victims of political repression.
At the same time, archives and museums began to collect memoirs and biographical information about the executed and injured citizens. In 1964, after Leonid Brezhnev came to leadership in the USSR and the end of Khrushchev’s “thaw,” the process of rehabilitation and perpetuation of the memory of victims of repression was suspended.
In September 1987, a commission of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee was created to further study materials related to political repression. In 1987-1990 A number of legislative acts were issued, including resolutions of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee “On the construction of a monument to the victims of repression” (July 4, 1988) and “On perpetuating the memory of victims of repression of the period of the 30-40s and early 50s” (June 28, 1989 of the year).
Monument "Solovetsky Stone"
In the late 1980s - early 1990s. activists of the Memorial society proposed to erect a monument to the victims of political repression in Moscow. By agreement with the Moscow City Council, the location for it was chosen in the park of the Polytechnic Museum on Dzerzhinsky Square (now Lubyanka Square) opposite the building of the former NKVD (KGB).
The monument was a granite boulder brought from the territory of the former Solovetsky special purpose camp ( Arhangelsk region). The stone was chosen by journalist Mikhail Butorin (at that time chairman of the board of the Arkhangelsk regional organization “Conscience”) and Arkhangelsk architect Gennady Lyashenko.
The grand opening of the monument, called the “Solovetsky Stone,” took place on October 30, 1990. The artist-architect S. Smirnov and designer V. Corsi took part in the creation of the sculptural composition.
In February 2008, it became known about plans to move the Solovetsky stone for construction work. In May 2008, after protests by human rights activists, they decided to leave the stone in place and assign it the status of a landmark.
Other famous monuments to victims of political terror
Today in Russia, hundreds of monuments, obelisks, steles, foundation stones, memorial signs, crosses and memorial plaques related to the history of repressions and the memory of their victims have been installed at the sites of mass executions, on the territory of former camp centers and in the settlements of special settlers.
Large monumental forms were also installed - chapels, belfries, walls of memory, sculptural compositions, memorials, memorial complexes.
Here are some of the most famous monuments and memorial complexes to victims of political terror:
Monument to the “Victims of Political Repression” in St. Petersburg. Located opposite the Crosses prison on the Robespierre Embankment). Opened on April 28, 1995. The author of the project is sculptor Mikhail Shemyakin. The sculptures in the form of two bronze sphinxes were cast in the USA and presented by the author to the city.
Sculpture "Moloch of totalitarianism". Opened on May 15, 1996 at the entrance to the Levashovskoye Memorial Cemetery in St. Petersburg. Authors: Nina Galitskaya and Vitaly Gambarov.
Memorial "Mask of Sorrow" in Magadan. Opened June 12, 1996. Authors: Ernst Neizvestny and Kamil Kazaev.
Memorial and museum complex in memory of deported peoples in the village of Nasyr-Kort (Ingushetia). Opened on February 23, 1997. Author of the project: Murad Polonkoev.
Bas-relief “Execution with Guardian Angel” in the Sandarmokh tract in Karelia. Opened on August 22, 1998 (under reconstruction since 2006) on the territory of the memorial cemetery. Authors: Grigory Saltup and Nikolai Ovchinnikov.
Memorial complex "Katyn" in the Smolensk region. Opened July 28, 2000. It unites the Polish military cemetery and the burial places of Soviet citizens - victims of political repression. The authors of the project for the Polish part are sculptors Zdislaw Pidak, Andrzej Solyga, Wieslaw and Jacek Synakiewicz. The Russian part was designed in creative workshop number 4 of the Union of Architects of Russia under the leadership of Mikhail Khazanov.
Memorial complex "Mednoye" in the Tver region. Opened on September 2, 2000. Polish prisoners of war, executed in 1940, and Soviet citizens (victims of the repressions of 1937-1938) are buried here. The design of the Russian part of the Memorial was carried out by Workshop No. 4 of the Union of Architects of the Russian Federation under the leadership of Mikhail Khazanov, the chief architect is Nikita Shangin. Authors of the concept of the Polish cemetery: creative Group under the direction of sculptors Zdzislaw Pidek and Andrzej Solyga.
"Monument to the Victims of Political Repression" in Ufa (Bashkortostan). Installed on December 23, 2000. Authors: Yuri Soldatov and Leonid Dubinsky.
Worship cross on the territory of the former Butovo training ground(one of the sites of mass executions; near the village of Drozhzhino, Leninsky district, Moscow region). Placed on August 7, 2007 on a foundation made of stones from the Solovetsky Islands and elements of previously destroyed Orthodox churches.
On December 10, 2014, the “Last Address” campaign started in Moscow. The goal of this project is to install personal signs of a single type on the facades of houses, the addresses of which became the last lifetime addresses of the victims of these repressions. St. Petersburg, Arkhangelsk, Barnaul, Irkutsk and other cities of the Russian Federation already participate in the program.
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