Russian authorities continue to reshape collective memory: Memorial has been branded an extremist organization, and official documents now criminalize the denial of the so-called «genocide of the Soviet people» instead of acknowledging the mass character of repression. Why did even Gulag survivors often refuse to recognize the regime’s crimes? How does the aesthetics of the Russian icon help the Russian state oppose the collective West? And what can be done when working with memory seems utterly hopeless? At a seminar of the School of Civic Education, researchers Klemena Antonova and Anna Shor-Chudnovskaya reflected on these questions.
«Everyone Thought We Were One Step Away from a ‘Normal Society’. This Naivety Played a Cruel Joke»
How to Talk About Historical Memory in 2026
