An Inconvenient Past. Memory of State Crimes in Russia and Other Countries

“Uncomfortable Past” by Nikolay Epple is an important book about historical memory and myths, included in the shortlist of the “Prosvetitel” (“Enlightener”) Prize for 2021. Does the past exist as an objective reality? After all, it is shaped by memory, and memory is biased and easily allows itself to be deceived. And there is also such a past that it’s unclear how to live with—memory of crimes in which the guilty are not external forces, but your own country. Remembering victims and suffering is generally harder than remembering heroes and victories. Yet to overcome the “difficult past” and move forward, the state and society must evaluate it and condemn it. In Russia, the repressions of the Soviet period still have no single legal and ethical assessment that would be significant for society as a whole. As a result of silence about the past, the absence of an opportunity and willingness to find common ground for discussing it, today in the same Russian family one person can consider Stalin’s repressions a myth and “defamation,” while for another person they were everyday reality. But Russia is not the first country to face such a problem. Memorial culture researcher Nikolay Epple, for the first time in Russian, examines the experiences of other countries in working with memory of state crimes. By describing how different scenarios took shape under different political and social circumstances, using examples of Germany, Argentina, Spain, Poland, South Africa, and Japan, Epple outlines principles that may help Russia successfully overcome collective trauma and resolve conflict within society. The book received the VI Publicistic Prize “LibMission” in the “Analytics” category (2021).