St. Petersburg Dialogue: History, Memory and Human Rights
This summer in Moscow took place the second colloquium with the topic „The presence of the Past - About the Attitudes Towards History and Memory“. The first colloquium was organised in July 2007 again in Moscow. The first as well as the second colloquium took place in the context of St. Petersburg Dialogue and in co-operation with the International Society for Human Rights „Memorial “, in accordance with and under participation of the co-ordinators of the Working Group „Civil Society“ of the Dialogue. Within the framework of the project Russia the discussions on a topic continued, which was introduced in the beginning of 1993, in the consideration that especially the examination and revision of the past would enable the Russian society to a new start and the Russian state to a real modernisation.
Also this second colloquium completed the task to initiate an open and substantial dialogue about the advantages and disadvantages of remembering and forgetting. The picture, outlined last year, became now more clear. Lately the memory of the dark sides of the past assumed the defensive. Instead of critical revision of the Stalinism, „the big terror”, the camps and the millions of victims a vagueness and unclearness regarding the Stalinism and the Great Power Soviet Union appeared. As it seems, most of the the political elite doesn´t show empathy, so that one could imagine himself or herself in the memory culture and historical-political motives of the Baltic countries or those of Poland.
Under the dominant nationalistic tendency a critical revision of the Soviet past became more difficult. This became clear, when on Russian side influential political scientists and historians neglected the pluralistic view to history in the education. In their opinion pupils did not need pluralistic view on history; they should not be confronted with the horrors of Soviet history, but should be taught to be proud of their country. Instead of remembering the victims and the suffering, „happy forgetfulness” was recommended. A German participant mentioned in his contribution the policy of “the final cross out”, of “forgiveness and fogetting” from a historic perspective as a possible solution to the problem with the past. Whether this way is possible today, was doubted.
The presence of nationalistic historians and journalists near to Kreml at the conference could be seen as a diversification. Their reactions indicated the time spirit and were a substantial contribution to the fact that, like the Moscow correspondent of FAZ Kerstin Holm wrote, German and as well Russian participants evaluated the second colloquium aa “a hot debate on the Russian trauma“ („, FAZ, 23.6.08 “Remembering the Atrocities).
Dr. Falk Bomsdorf, Project Manager of the FNF´s Subregion East
|
