The Other Russia
MEMORIAL: 35 Years of Struggle
for Historical Truth
and Democracy

After his election in 1985 as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev initiated reforms. They aimed at Glasnost (transparency) and Perestroika (restructuring). Millions of people publicly demanded freedom of expression, democracy and the investigation of crimes. In 1987, an association was formed in Moscow to fight for the establishment of a memorial for the victims of state violence. In 1989, delegates from across the Soviet Union gathered to found Memorial. They elected the dissident, physicist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov as chairman. All crimes were to be investigated, those responsible named, and the millions of silenced victims given back their names and their history. The investigation of repression and terror also served to build and secure democratic conditions. Disclosure and investigation have repeatedly been hindered by the state. The state leadership lacked the willingness to acknowledge that the Soviet state as such was responsible for the crimes. A reform of the state security organs failed to materialize and historical truth remained contested.

On May 21, 1989, 200,000 people in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium demand democratic reforms. Photo: Memorial Collection

On October 30, 1990, Memorial erected one of the first monuments for the victims of terror and repression in the Soviet Union in Moscow. On Lubyanka Square - directly opposite the building where the Soviet secret service resided from 1920 to 1991 and where the Russian domestic intelligence service (FSB) is today - a granite stone commemorates the victims. It comes from the precursors of the Gulag camps on the Solovetsky Islands. In the building, countless people were tortured, execution orders were signed, and people were shot in the immediate vicinity. Monument initiatives followed throughout the country. Since 2007, thousands of people have read out the names of victims shot in Moscow at the Solovetsky Stone annually on October 29. Following the state-ordered dissolution of Memorial in 2021, these readings were banned.

In front of the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the Soviet secret service, a stone from the Solovetsky Islands is erected as a monument to the victims of political repression on October 30, 1990. The communist regime had established the first camps there from 1923. Photo: Memorial Collection

In 1993, Memorial established a center for uncovering and documenting human rights violations by Russia, the Memorial Human Rights Center. Already during the First Chechen War (1994-1996), Memorial staff collected information on Russian war crimes and demanded prosecution. Since Putin's rise to power in 2000, such commitments have increasingly been considered anti-state and become more dangerous. Due to her engagement during the Second Chechen War (1999-2009), Memorial staff member Natalia Estemirova was murdered in 2009. Since 2009, Memorial has been recording the number of political prisoners in Russia and supporting them.

Svetlana Gannushkina and Alexander Cherkasov from Memorial hold a vigil on Red Square in Moscow on July 31, 2017. They demand an investigation into the murder of Natalia Estemirova. Photo: Memorial Collection

A central instrument of Putin's rule is the falsification of history. The exposure of the Soviet system is considered undermining pride, heroism and defensive capability in view of the aggressive, expansive nationalism propagated by the regime. Instead of coming to terms with the past, the Russian state emphasizes the technical, industrial and supposed political achievements of the Soviet Union and places itself in its tradition. The state determines and controls the historical image, has textbooks rewritten and introduces new commemoration days. Even Stalin is again considered a role model: as the alleged sole author of the "victory over fascism" in the "Great Patriotic War" against Nazi Germany (1941 to 1945) and as the founder of Russia as a world power. Dozens of new monuments glorify the dictator. Memorial's historical education and enlightenment work opposes this.

Monumental monument "For the Soviet Soldier" inaugurated by Putin on June 30, 2020 near the city of Rzhev. The figure of a 25-meter-high Soviet soldier on a 10-meter-high burial mound commemorates the Battle of Rzhev. From late 1941 to March 1943, up to 2 million Red Army soldiers died here. They were poorly equipped and organized. Despite enormous losses of up to 90%, they had to repeatedly charge against the German occupiers on Stalin's orders without being able to achieve victory. In the Soviet Union, the battle was therefore taboo, but Putin reinterpreted it as an event of exemplary patriotic loyalty and heroic sacrifice. In terms of formal language, the monument openly refers to Socialist Realism. In terms of content and aesthetics, it calls for identification with the Soviet Union and declares the supposed unconditional allegiance and patriotic sacrifice of that time as the guideline for today. Photo: Press Service of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation

After the violent annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Putin regime intensified its attacks on civil society. Memorial also openly opposed the attack on Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea. In 2016, the state classified Memorial's umbrella organization - Memorial International - as a "foreign agent". This branded Memorial as foreign-controlled and anti-Russian. The authorities made it difficult to use collections and archives. Memorials were destroyed, public rallies were banned. Searches and arrests followed. In 2016, Yuri Dmitriev, the head of the Memorial branch in Karelia, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in a politically motivated, fabricated trial. Broad protest has risen against the state attacks. With the slogan "We are Memorial", people across Russia and many countries of the world showed solidarity.

Vigil in December 2021 in front of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in Moscow in support of Memorial. The sign shows Memorial's logo and the sentence: "We will always live". Photo: Natalia Kolesnikova, AFP

Police officers lock the entrance to Memorial's building in Moscow with handcuffs on October 14, 2021. Photo: Daria Krotova, Memorial Collection

Immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, police and the domestic intelligence service (FSB) searched Memorial's premises accompanied by vandalism. These were confiscated on October 7, 2022. Staff members had to flee Russia. The staff driven into exile have built new Memorial organizations outside Russia. Digital archives and exhibitions are being created. The investigation of history, the exposure of historical falsification and propaganda, the documentation of human rights violations continue, and help is organized for war opponents and regime critics persecuted in Russia.

On March 20, 2022, Oleg Orlov, human rights activist and co-founder of Memorial, is arrested for his vigil against the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Teatralnaya Square in Moscow. His placard reads: "Crazy Putin is driving the world into nuclear war". Photo: Anastasia Yegorova, Novaya Gazeta