The past can unite

What policy of historical memory is correct for Russia in its relations with neighbors: the policy of “removal of debts” or the policy of “non -recognition of the duty”? Yes, neither one nor the other, in my opinion. The terminology itself seems to me false at its core. She suggests that someone owed someone, and this duty requires a return. Blood becomes a currency with which the states, governments are trying to conduct their calculations. One side declares itself to be a victim, a lender, and the other side with its debtor. The opposite side yells heartily that she owes nothing to anyone, because she did not see anything from her except gentleness, and any reminder of the opposite is black ingratitude and nothing more.

It is impossible to build a civilian nation either on a declaration of oneself as a victim, nor on recognition of himself an executioner, nor to proclaim himself an eternal benefactor of all neighbors. Historical memory is a civil liability overturned into the past , this is the idea that “we” are not starting with the birth of the current generation, that we are inheriting and continuing the deed of previous generations. The concept of civil liability for the past and concept of collective historical guilt are completely different things. The guilt can be transferred like a ball; The guilt can be rejected - and forget about it; Finally, you can repent of wine-and, again, forget about it. And responsibility for the past is a voluntarily and individually taken by a member of a member of a community to realize this past, to accept it as its own and constantly work with it, to comprehend it (“o-respect”, that is, to introduce meanings) again and again. This work has no end: each new generation must do this work for itself - and not according to the drooping of neighbors, but of their own good will. Only then does the word “we” acquire a historical dimension, only then does the nation have a prospect of a common future, only then does it become, according to Nikolai Berdyaev, a “generalized historical personality” in the circle of other nations.

In fact, there is no policy of historical memory in Russia. In the 1990s, it was absent at all; Since the beginning of the 2000s, it boils down to the fact that political leaders from time to time begin to snap at the neighbors presenting Russia one or another. Both that and the other are barren. The policy of presenting the account is barren, the policy of repayment of the account (these debts cannot be repaid, because these are, first of all, our debts to ourselves), the policy of denying the debt to the past is three times fruitless.

As for our today's dialogue with the peoples of Eastern Europe (not with the governments, God with them, with the governments! - but with the peoples), here we are faced with the fact that different peoples have different images of the past. For some reason, from this fact we tend to fall into hysteria and shout about “ingratitude”, “falsifications” and the like.

In fact, falsifications can be talked about when they are distorted, silent or denied obvious, proven facts a hundred times. For example, when some subject denies the existence of Nazi death camps. Or claims that the Katyn execution is the work of the Gestapo, not the NKVD.

The establishment of facts, checking their reliability is a professional matter, historians are engaged in this. Another thing is the images of the past, which are formed in the mass consciousness ; They are built on the interpretation of facts, on their assessment. Interpretations and assessments of the same facts, of course, can be different. It all depends on the context in which these facts are considered.

For example, the entry of the Soviet troops into the Baltic states in 1944. In our national memory, this is an episode of the Great Patriotic War, that is, our war against foreign invaders; In another context, it is also not alien to our national consciousness - this is the episode of World War II, the war of mankind against Nazism. In the first context, the fighting in the Baltic states fall into one row with battles in Stalingrad, on the Kursk arc, on the Oder, etc. It doesn’t matter where it was - it was all the war with the Germans. In the second context, this is El Alamain, Guadalkanal, the same Stalingrad, landing in Normandy, “Meeting on the Elbe”.

But for the Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians 1944 - this is not so much the end of the three -year Nazi occupation as the return of the invaders of 1940. Those who trampled the country's independence, made the shameful comedy of the “popular expression” about the “voluntary” entry into the Union and within one day on June 14, 1941 sent thousands of families to the Siberian deportation, including women, elderly, infants (in total about 36 thousand people).

Plus, after all, it also includes what was later: Sovietization, violent collectivization, brutal suppression of partisan resistance, new mass arrests and new deportations (only in 1948–1949, of the three tiny Baltic republics, almost 140 thousand people were sent to Siberia).

Therefore, in our memory, the events of 1944 are painted in positive tones: this is one of the victorious episodes in the liberation struggle. And for the Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, these events fall, first of all, into the context of the preceding and following the Soviet terror, in the context of what they today call the “third occupation”.

Who is right? This question is meaningless. Our memory does not lie - but their memory also does not lie. How to be? First of all, to admit that the path of accusations is barren, it leads to separation and an impasse. Then - to accept the difference in national memories as a given . We should not replace our national memory of a stranger, but we must respect this alien memory, know and understand the reasons that other peoples develop significantly other images of the past than ours. If you like, we must, without receding our national memory, enrich it with knowledge of other interpretations.

Our Pribalt neighbors should also know and understand the specifics of our memory, and, remaining with their perception of historical events, respect the features of our national consciousness. There should be a dialogue of national memories, and it must be mutually respectful . Then the differences will work not on separation, but on the rapprochement of peoples.

With all the scatter of historical contexts, there is perhaps one, the main one, uniting all the peoples of Eastern Europe: the memory of terror . Today, many of our neighbors remember one thing: Russia has come (for them that Russia, that the Soviet Union is the same) and made mass killings in our country, brought death and grief to thousands of families. The fact that Russia itself has suffered more than all other countries from this very terror itself is aware of few. And this is understandable: how many today in Russia they clearly understand that the Soviet state terror was a national disaster, primarily for Russia itself? The government policy of memory (if this can be called politics) due to such accusations emanating from abroad can only strengthen this misunderstanding.

Take the reaction of various kinds of authorities - the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Duma and others - to the June resolution of the OSCE regarding the memory of Soviet terror, in fact, extremely pro -Russian. Instead of saying to the Europeans: “Thank you for perceiving our national tragedy as a pan -European; We work with this past in our country, we do this and that; Let’s now work together, since you finally realized that this is not only our problem ” - we begin to hysterically look for anti -Russian subtext in this resolution. That is, we strengthen the idea that is so excessively existing among our neighbors that Russia is the subject of terrorist policy, its source, it is so painfully reacting to any conversations on this topic-and the rest of the peoples of Eastern Europe only the sacrifice of this villainous country. In fact, the reaction of the Russian political elite to this resolution is evidence that the communist regime and Russia are identical in her elite, historical consciousness.

Attempts to blame the authors of the resolution are characteristic that they put Soviet and Nazi regimes on one board. The point is not how identical these regimes are, but how different are. (In some ways, they are very similar, in some ways they are different-this is the subject of a separate analysis). The fact is that the meaning of these accusations, the prosecutors want, or not, is to rehabilitate the Soviet terrorist policy, proving to the world that our executioners were better, kinder, humane than the Nazis. On this wretched thought, can you build a “memory policy”? Hence the attempts to explain the massacres “objective historical circumstances”, and even the proclamation of the “historical necessity” of terror. All this is issued for an objective historical analysis.

There is no dispute, historical analysis requires, when considering any phenomenon and, in particular, mass crimes committed by state power, to take into account the historical context. However, taking into account this context and apology of crimes are completely different, even opposite things. An objective analysis of Hitlerism cannot but take into account the historical context of this phenomenon, but Nazi terror will not justify the historical context of the Nazi terror, moreover, a German politician. And you will not find such an excuse and, especially, apology of terror in any German history textbook. And in Russian - you will find.

Yes, both terrorist regimes had their own characteristics; Yes, the crimes that they committed against their and foreign peoples varied in details. In the genocide of peoples, for example, Hitler succeeded more; Stalin, although he practiced the total deportations of peoples, but still did not try to organize the total and focused physical destruction of each individual belonging to them. In terror, directed against his own people, Stalin, on the contrary, turns out to be an indisputable leader. But, I repeat, these are details: general criteria can and should apply to both modes; Both of these regimes are terrorist and, therefore, criminal. Does the OSCE resolution put them “on one board”? Correctly does.

For some reason, in the understanding of the critics of the resolution, the statement about the crime of the Stalinist regime means the rehabilitation of "Nazis and their accomplices."

Why?

Sometimes they answer this question as follows: if the communist regime of criminal, then armed resistance to him is legitimate; And the post -war armed anti -Soviet resistance consisted entirely of collaborators who collaborated during the occupation with the Nazis. Here you have the rehabilitation of accomplices of Nazism.

Firstly, this is simply not true.

Armed anti-Soviet resistance in different countries was arranged differently: in Lithuania, for example, many underground anti-Nazi organizations that arose in 1942–1944 joined it.

The history of the Bandera movement, known as the Ukrainian rebel army (OUN -UPA), is also much more complicated. I am not a supporter of the theory of the “War of the UPA into two fronts”, which is put forward by some Ukrainian historians today. In my opinion, this is a simplification: during the occupation of the OUN-UPA politician (in any case, its Bandera wing) changed several times: there were attempts to agreement with the Germans, and the fighting against them, and even temporary tactical agreements with the Soviet partisans. There were shameful, bloody pages.

For example, the Volyn massacre of 1943: Partisans of the UPA destroyed the Polish population of the region. Stepan Bandera himself does not seem to me the most pretty character in Ukrainian history, some software documents of the OUN also do not cause sympathy. But we are not talking about the political “superstructure” of the movement, but about the causes and driving forces of the partisan war (with all the horrors inherent in any partisan movement; I am not inclined to recklessly heroize any partisans, as well as to completely refuse them heroism).

Well, and the Polish army of Kraiov? Who can accuse her of cooperation with the Nazis? (However, in Soviet historiography, such accusations met; well, for that it is Soviet).

If we want to figure out all the difficult nodes of the Second World War, then we must refuse simplifications. History is afraid of simplicity. There was a big war - and inside it there were many separate, local wars. And every such war was a tragedy, with its heroism, with its atrocities, each broke the fate of the people involved in it.

In any case, the partisan armies after 1944 were not pronounced, but anti -Soviet - from this we must proceed.

Is it possible to put these small wars on one board with anti -Nazi resistance? Why, in fact, not? Both here and there people fought for freedom.

In any case, the theme of anti -Soviet armed resistance in the Baltic countries, in Ukraine, in Poland should become the subject of a long, calm and unbiased international dialogue . Dialogue of historians - here is a lot of unexplored and undeveloped material. Public dialogue. Maybe political dialogue. Such a dialogue could become an important component of memory policy. And the notorious commission on falsifications, recently created under the President of the Russian Federation, has nothing to do here: she is going to engage in falsifications that “cause damage to the interests of Russia”. And the discussions about the damage and expected dividends - for Russia or anyone - such a dialogue are especially dangerous and contraindicated. This is a vicious idea, since it implies a bargain, the creation of a “exchange point”, in which some facts are replaced by others, and the complexity of history is canceled.

My refrain: The past unites . The past is not only a source of consolidation of peoples, but also the ground for rapprochement between them. The tragic past unites the most. And our national memory policy (which is not - this is my second refrain) should be built primarily on awareness, the development of the tragic past.

There is an opposite point of view, it is it that recently in the course: to educate a new generation, we need a “happy story”, cleansed of bloody spots, filters are needed, otherwise all these uncomfortable historical topics will lead to irreversible and painful consequences in the youth environment.

Not true! According to our memorial work with youth, with schoolchildren (through our contest of the research work of high school students “Man in History: Russia, the twentieth century”, about 20 thousand schoolchildren have passed over the past 10 years), I see how to understand the tragedies of the past, historical consciousness has grown in young people, there is a feeling of personal involvement in national history. And after all, we do not impose on our students the topic of their research - they themselves are looking for and choose it. It’s just that the whole Russian history of the twentieth century is a tragedy, the tragedy of the Shakespearean scope. And it is precisely its tragedy character that is able to collect, reconstruct national identity.

What can that real, honest and promising memory policy that I am talking about can rely on?

Firstly-on Russian culture, in particular-on the culture of the Soviet period, especially literature. She is clearly anti -Stalinist, this literature, and not only in her samizdat hypostasis, but also in the superconsure too: you just need to be able to read it. Secondly, in the main ones, on a real memory that exists and root among the people. It seems that there is no such memory in Russia - but this is not so. It is not at the level of national institutions: there is no museum of terror, there is no national memorial to its victims, there are no school textbooks, such as it would be mentioned not only about victims, but also about crimes as such, and about the organizers of these crimes - precisely as criminals, and not just as state figures. Somewhere in the periphery of national consciousness, the memory of resistance to the regime is pushed: about peasants-people, about the socialist opposition of the 1920s, about the intra-party of dissent, about the underground youth circles of the 1940-1950s, about the dissenting intelligentsia, about the dissidents of the 1960-1980s.

However, this memory exists, in a fragmented and fragmented form, at the regional level. Its guardians are museum workers, librarians, teachers, local historians, archivists. Naturally, such fragmented and disparate, it is not very amenable to comprehension. Therefore, in the "Memorial" we see our task in reintegrate this memory, to collect this past from regional fragments, to build a wide panorama of the national tragedy from them and present it to the mass consciousness. We have several such “integrated” projects that are quite successfully implemented. There is a series of CD-Diski “List of victims of state terror in the USSR”, built on the association of memory books published in a number of Russian regions; The latest edition of this disk contains about 2,800,000 names - this, of course, is only a small part of the full list of victims, about 20 percent according to our estimates. There is a project “The Virtual Museum of the Gulag” - this is an attempt to collect in a single virtual space material certificates of terror stored in the museums of Russia; Now the project of the project contains materials of expositions and funds of about 120 museums. There are other projects of a similar direction.

Of course, without the assistance of federal authorities, it is impossible to turn all these projects into a “memory policy”. Например, можно выстроить в Интернете «виртуальный музей» – но реальный музейно-мемориальный комплекс общенационального значения без участия правительства выстроить невозможно. Однако правительства планируют свою жизнь от выборов до выборов. Сроки планирования, которыми оперируют гражданские организации, гораздо длиннее.