DV: Why is it important to tell children and teenagers about the dark pages of Russia's past?
Irina Shcherbakova: First, children should not be lied to. It is possible not to tell them about something while they are little - there are many scary, bloody and difficult things - but you cannot lie. Secondly, if they lie to you and say: "Nothing like this happened", and you see everything and hear everything, distrust of everything and a cynical attitude towards the world appear - if they lie to you, then I can do it too. During a dictatorship, a person involuntarily finds himself in a situation of double thinking. You are afraid for the children, so you try to explain to them that they should be careful. This is a bad lesson that does not lead to anything good.
"Not everything that is said at home is said outside"
When I was about four years old, something happened that I will remember for the rest of my life: on March 4, 1953, Joseph Stalin died, but no one dared to write about it, there were only rumors in Moscow... I heard these conversations at home. My mother and I were standing in a long queue on the street in the center of Moscow, we had an apartment literally three minutes from the Kremlin, and I was very bored. To show, on the one hand, that I was already an adult and aware of everything, and on the other, that I was really interested in this topic, I said loudly: "Mom, is Stalin really dead?" I saw how the whole queue froze, petrified, and some woman turned to us with the words: "You need to shut the child's mouth". There was such a case with the neighbors: their girl kept talking until the whole family was brought home. Those were terrible times. I still remember how my mother pulled me out of the queue, grabbed my hand tightly and said: “Not everything that is talked about at home can be said out loud. Don't say another word.“ I was four years old and I learned this for life. Freeing myself from such "lessons" is a very long process.
I can't imagine what is happening to children in Russia now. They are not offered an image of an ideal future - they are promised only eternal war and hatred, which is something monstrous. It is terrible to imagine what will grow on this soil. Therefore, children should not be lied to and deceived, they should know in what society they live. It is important how you tell them about it - there are many people in Germany who do this.
DV: Political indoctrination is part of the educational program. How can we avoid politicizing history?
Irina Shcherbakova: I believe in facts. They must be proven and supported. They must be known and learned - that is why children go to school. But the key is not so much in facts as in logical thinking. The most important thing that populists achieve is to break logical connections. An example from today. For some reason, the residents of Kursk do not understand why missiles and drones are flying in their direction. A humanities education is exactly what you need to be able to make logical connections.
"It wasn't Gorbachev who collapsed the USSR, but Stalin's planned economy and system"
Without them, one cannot understand that it wasn't Mikhail Gorbachev who collapsed the USSR, but that the planned economy and the system created by Stalin cannot exist in the modern world. The USSR collapsed not as a result of a conspiracy of some hostile forces or intrigues, but because the system ceased to be convincing. Also, Germany at one time collapsed not because of a world conspiracy, but because Adolf Hitler started a terrible war and lost it. Because of him, German cities were destroyed at the end of the war, and Germany was divided afterwards.
DV: The German historian Friedrich Meinecke wrote after World War II that the true history is preserved in people's personal documents and notes. How is history instrumentalized in today's Russia?
Irina Shcherbakova: It seems to me that Putin's instrumentalization of history was possible also because back in the 1990s, a process of popularizing and relativizing history began. We heard more and more often: there are no facts, only interpretation; there are no historians, only interpreters. Relativism is used by populists, and Putin uses it too.
How Putin interprets history
Putin's interpretation of history, his article on the origin of the Ukrainian nation, is exactly the same relativism that claims that there are no Ukrainians and no nation, only a place of residence. In Germany, the far-right party "Alternative for Germany" (AfD) and Holocaust deniers use the same rhetoric. History does not forgive such tricks. If history is manipulated, there is a "backlash". This does not necessarily mean that it can teach you anything, but it can show what happens when you take it out of its brackets. You will stumble over the same thing again and again, you will return to repression, to aggressive war.
DW: Finding the right words is the most difficult part of the work of a writer, of any enlightener. How do you find the right words to talk about Soviet repressions?
Irina Shcherbakova: It's very difficult. I'm afraid that the language we use to talk about the importance of memory and the need for knowledge of history is terribly outdated, that young people don't understand it. We need to talk to them without pathos and without indoctrination, as simply, honestly and understandably as possible.
"War turns everything into black and white"
I feel like we are in an intellectual crisis - I don't see any breakthroughs in labeling today's political processes and phenomena. We talk about Putinism and Trumpism, but these terms don't explain much. After Hannah Arendt, we can criticize the theory of totalitarianism as much as we want, but in fact we haven't invented anything new. Intellectual efforts should be directed at describing what is happening now. You know, like in fairy tales - to defeat the monster, you need to spell its name correctly.
DV: It is especially difficult to think about such complex issues during war.
Irina Shcherbakova: War turns everything into black and white - you see how the different fronts are arranged. When bombs and missiles are falling, there is no opportunity for real reflection on complex and painful things. Because of this, it is impossible to distinguish the nuances.
We are at a tragic moment in history, when we have to say either "yes" or "no" in a difficult situation. It is difficult to explain to children, for example, that sometimes, as was the case in Soviet history in the 1930s, it is impossible to draw a line between the victims and the executioners. Legally it is possible to establish who is responsible, but with the moral definition it is not easy.
DV: Where can we find a good example of processing and rethinking national traumas? Maybe in Germany?
Irina Shcherbakova: Historical experience proves valuable when people are convinced that their present and future depend on their attitude towards the past, that the consciousness of the masses is locked right there, while the modern world is based on false ideologies of greatness like "Make it Great Again". Germany has come a long way, has done a lot: it has debated and published documents, experimented and changed concepts and approaches. This experience is important and perhaps thanks to it, the AfD will not be able to convince everyone with its flat formulas.
In my work, it was important for me to achieve mass awareness of the consequences of Stalinism, because in the 1970s, I and many people around me felt that there was a Stalinist "Frankenstein" on our path, preventing us from moving forward, from changing systems and thinking. Because in recent decades, enormous damage has been done to the arts, the humanities, and philosophy, and society has been set back. That is why public efforts were harnessed to dislodge this "Frankenstein" and bury it.
It turned out that the remains of Frankenstein are very resistant
When a broad public movement for "retribution" emerged in the late 1980s, with Stalinism, on the crest of this wave the organization "Memorial" arose. But we didn't make it to the end. In the second half of the 1990s, talking about the legacy of the Stalinist regime was marginalized. We were told that we had had enough of Stalin, that no one was afraid of Frankenstein, that we had a new society and culture, open borders, and such wonderful projects as the "Gogol" Center, etc. People had time to discover world philosophy and literature.
In 2010, it became clear that these remnants of Frankenstein were very resistant, but it was too late. The disassembled Frankenstein was sprayed with Putin's living water and he came back to life. If at first all this rising Soviet nostalgia seemed rather ridiculous and disgusting, then it became clear that Stalin's monuments are a path to aggressive nationalism, militarism - and, as we have seen, to aggressive war.
DV: In your book you ask three questions: how could we have allowed this catastrophe to happen, what should we do now, and what is the future of Russia? How would you answer them?
Irina Shcherbakova: It is difficult for a historian to be both a subject and an object of history - it is as if from the moment Putin came to power we were aware of what all this would lead to. I am talking about the existing contradiction between a person and a historian: professionally you are convinced of everything, you see how Putin is massing troops at the border, but as a person you do not want to believe that all this is happening. And when at four in the morning you receive a text message saying "Kiev is being bombed", you are overcome with a feeling of horror, you do not know how the country will get out of this catastrophe, how to bear responsibility for all this. It is not easy to find answers to these questions.
Irina Shcherbakova is a co-founder of the Russian human rights organization "Memorial", which studies Stalinism and its crimes in the USSR. Her book, titled „Memorial,", was recently published in German. To remember is to resist".
Author: Marina Jung