The inconvenient past
Непогрешимая история
Почему в России оправдывают государственные преступления, объясняет филолог Николай Эппле
https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2020/10/07/87424-nepogreshimaya-istoriya
«Не допустить повторения зверств — вот в чем ответственность»
The past and the future of Russia – in the new book by Nikolay Epple
it is impossible to rely on “it will resolve itself”
Nikolay Epple scrupulously examines not only domestic attempts to overcome the totalitarian past – “thaw”, “perestroika”, current calls for “drawing the line”, masking the legitimation of power from above, or “return of names” as a real ritual of collecting a divided past from below – but also experience countries that differ from each other even in their continental affiliation. Argentina, Japan, Spain, South Africa … And, of course, Germany.
An unworked past creates a gap in the social fabric, for which there are no ready-made healing mechanisms. Just as the ghosts of deceased convicts cannot integrate into the ways of dealing with the spirits of the dead, habitual for local residents, forcing the living to withdraw from their homes, so the memory of the mass Soviet terror on a national scale cannot be built into existing memory structures. It does not form an ordinary cultural humus, but lies in an unprocessed layer, now and then “breaking through” into the reality of today“.
Maxim Trudolyubov: “The Soviet legacy is not just material for historians. This is the foundation on which the country stands”.