Translated material
Returning names
On Monday, Arseny Borisovich Roginsky, the historian, founder and many years of the Memorial society, died.
The scale of his personality is easy to understand by what they wrote about him and write on social networks!
Arseny Borisovich Roginsky added the life of justice. He knew how, he knew how to and inspired. He sat himself, so he supported me in the prison years. He was a good person. Eternal memory. pic.twitter.com/rmzhtt3SRT
- Khodorkovsky Mikhail (@MICH261213) December 18, 2017
Arseniy Borisovich Roginsky - a man with a pure and hot soul, defender of truth and law, a real historian, creator of the Memorial, left forever. I bring deep condolences to everyone who loved and love Arseny Borisovich. Absolutely irreparable loss. pic.twitter.com/dz4bnui8ua
- Grigory Yavlinsky (@yavlinsky) December 18, 2017
Arseny Roginsky from the Memorial died. He was amazing. It's a pity.
- Alexey Gusarov (@alexgusarov) December 18, 2017
Arseny Borisovich Roginsky died ... a bright memory, let the earth be fluff.
- Sable Love (@sobollubov) December 18, 2017
I express deep condolences to all close to Arseny Roginsky and members of the Memorial. He was an outstanding person who made a huge contribution to the development of human rights movement, civil society and the historical science of Russia
- Sergey Mitrokhin (@mitrokhin) December 18, 2017
Arseny of Roginsky was gone. Eternal memory. The page is turned into another human rights era.
What a terrible and irreparable loss
The main loss of this year. And not only the year
For some reason, I remember him always smiling. So I will remember.
The embodiment of conscience and decency. Hero. Creator. A great and beautiful person.
The bright memory of the great, bright and modest person.
A man left of those on whom conscience and memory are holding.
Low bow.
Eternal memory to Arseny Borisovich Roginsky. He was a very smart, brave and decent person. He did a lot for all of us, even for those who do not understand this now. He built that Russia that, I hope, will be.
Arseny Roginsky and Paphos were unimaginable nearby. He performed his great purpose - how he breathed. He was ironic and non -heroic.
He was an exemplary citizen of Russia, and therefore - a marginal and the fifth column in today's sample time. He was not distracted by resentment. He returned the names of the executed, he worked for the future, in which, perhaps, there was a place of memory and dignity.
Longing today, of course. A terrible longing.
Farewell, dear Arseniy Borisovich.
I saw Arseny Roginsky only a few times, but from the first minute it was clear - this is a real person.
Remember the world, Arseniy Borisovich.
You managed to do a lot.
A great, unbending person.
We were familiar, of course, but never really communicated. So: hello, hello.
Now I think: what a fool I am. It was necessary to talk to him while there was an opportunity. He is really great and unbending.
Bright memory. My condolences are relatives and friends.
It is very difficult to realize what happened, and it is completely impossible to reconcile with it ... The last time they said, they didn’t have time to discuss a lot ... it just happened ...
The dear, courteous, always emphasized polite and, it seems, so soft, but in fact absolutely steel and unbending ... and also surprisingly accurate in every wording, in every word ...
Farewell, dear friend ... Eternal memory to you ...
Our eternal gratitude and our eternal love to Arseny Borisovich Roginsky, whom we lost this morning.
He was wise, brave and full of love for people around. He did a huge job day after day, year after year. It had so much patience, so much perseverance. He remembered and knew everything that we all did not have the strength to remember and know.
It will be very difficult without it.
A completely great man has died today. A person who built the most important human institution in modern Russia. Incredibly sorry
Arseniy Roginsky, now I thought, of all our human rights activists was the best, but others will forgive me. Really ... firstly, never climbed into a showdown, especially near political ones. Secondly, thereby knew how to unite people, although human rights activists usually disconnect and gnaw at each other for any resources. Thirdly, he was an amazing organizer, one "return of the names" is worth it. Fourth, they never stared before anyone, which is extremely important.
This is probably the biggest loss for the human rights movement, which could only be.
When people like Arseniy Borisovich die, I understand that I still believe in immortality, the life of an eternal, afterlife - tell me as you want. Just because this wisdom, irony, simplicity, lightness, fearlessness, subtlety, depth, nobility, generosity and all that there are no words in the human language cannot dissolve and disappear into nowhere, and only shine the reflected light in our short memory. He is alive.
I talked with him several times already in Perm. He came to us at the Pylorama festival, supported the Perm Museum36. And the memorial participated and formed a program of round tables with money.
He and Danya Dondurey were similar to their "mournful optimism." I think due to the horizons and the view of what is happening from a great distance. Well, like yes, everything is bad, but this is not a reason for despondency. The first time is "everything is bad" in the history of mankind? But look how people showed themselves in this darkness? No gulag will cancel love, youth, the sun.
There are a lot of warm and hot words about the death of Arseny Borisovich Roginsky in the tape. Yes, the day passed under the oppression of this shock promised never to the non -insurance. It is impossible to get rid of the idea that we will not go out to smoke on the porch of the memorial, discussing the next turn of history and glancing at the oatmeal jelly of the Moscow sky. That's just one again - not either.
But these are all home emotions and cute memories of everyone. But in fact, I treated and belong to Roginsky differently. In fact, I saw in him and see one of the most significant contemporaries with whom I had a chance to communicate. One of the most significant and important people in Russia is the last 25 years.
Roginsky did not like catchy publicity. He hid from his role one of the key figures of Russian socio-political life. From the role of the leader and organizer. He liked the role of a gray cardinal more, or it was an academic modesty, or a vaccination of conspiracy.
He zealously insisted on the line, completely separating human rights from politics. Definitely disdain the last. We argued about this when I recorded his lecture on human rights movement for the course at the Open University. He painted the history of human rights movement as isolated from political history. He said that dissidentity did not give anything to Russian politics. And although this is not so, of course, of course, there are a lot of fair and important for thought (if we compare, for example, the fate of Russian dissidentism and Polish).
This craving for restriction, it may have prevented contemporaries from realizing the real scale of his personality. But, thank God, there is a clear evidence, undeniable evidence. "Memorial". One of the most amazing, beautiful and successful institutions created in Russia in the last 30 years. One of the real achievements of her post-Soviet period. What the meaning of this period managed to show and capture himself.
Why only post-Soviet? If you look at the entire history of Russia - the whole, all the history of Russia - and name the 10 most striking and significant non -state institutions, then the Memorial will come here. The key and the castle connecting the historian who has become a public figure, with the subject of his love, is Russian history.
Today, Senya Roginsky died. Arseny Borisovich Roginsky. Great man. Big historian. Soviet political prisoner. ZEK. But first of all, the creator of the Memorial.
The Memorial was his brainchild, although together with Roginsky the Memorial created and created many people in him.
But it was Senya Roginsky every day, every month, every year invented more and more “pieces”, it seems that he called those wonderful projects that changed the climate in our country. Charm, or, as it is now customary to say, Harism of Harism gathered many people around him who tried to change both the climate and life in the country with him and along with the “memorial”. Those who believed and loved Senya are not only his peers, these are not only my peers, these are the peers of my children.
For the “Return of Names” campaign, Sene would have to be erected during life.
This action united the society more than all opposition rallies of recent years together.
Senya was sick for almost a year, and it was unbearable to know and understand that suddenly once he would not, there would be his smile with a squint, there will be no tenderness. He will not be him. It seemed that geniuses did not die. They must be with us. Like a amulet.
Life is unfair.
Senya promised to return and drink with us "for your and our freedom."
We'll have to drink without him.
Not from the nearby circle, but always somewhere nearby. The ether is not considered, there is still an public conversation. But the tour that he spent for us with the Perm-36 camp, I will never forget. He did not sit there, he had another camp, but orders, orders - they were alone in all camps. He quickly smoked, cherished, and then again: he drove, showed, told. And his voice, this is his voice. We almost late for an important event, fled the three of us, out of breath. It was impossible to stop listening to him.
Once he gave me a recommendation for one competition. But before writing, he asked:
- At least you found out who else is submitted, the certificates were brought through your people?
- No, why?
- Marina, what are you like a child, really. As if you do not know how it is done ...
I scolded me for another five minutes. But he wrote. It turned out to be right - I do not think that he was often mistaken. But I have a recommendation for his signature. I will save as a keepsake, like a voice.
Thank you for everything, Arseniy Borisovich, dear. Thank you for being, and they were like that. Sorry for the chaos in memories. Friends and associates will remember something else, I have it like this.
I remember very well how ten years ago when Grisha Okhotny and I made a book festival at the Central House of Artists, he embarrassedly approached us and said: “You know, I went out and found on the stairs” and handed us the framed work of Mavrina. He was uncomfortable. We understood the value of the picture, and he understood. But for some reason, we could not steal her, but searched for its owner. The tower speculator, capable of assessing its value, but not skill. So I will remember Arseny modestly giving me a job, which I could not pimple, because he gave it to me.
I once posted this story here, but from today it sounded in a new way.
When Arseniy Borisovich Roginsky decided to write a term paper from Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman, he wanted to take as a theme of someone the Great, and Yuri Mikhailovich began to offer Roginsky secondary and third-story. “But this is all the background of the era ...” - Arseniy Borisovich tried to resist. "Not the background, but air, air!" - answered Lotman. “I immediately thought about the comrades of the legal entity, who died in the war,” Roginsky concluded his story.
Maybe now the teacher and student are again talking about something where we are not ...
Beautiful, smart ironic, friendly, courageous, cheerful. One of those few on whom a wide variety of human relations were tied and fastened through whom a variety of ways and biographies passed in transit. A person made of the most valuable and rarest materials.
In communication with him, there was always a close relatedness. It is not clear how this sensation was achieved, but it was, and it was distinct.
I am sure that it was for many. Therefore, this loss is not only the loss of an "outstanding public figure." This is itself, and it is undoubted.
But this is a personal family loss for so many who today painfully felt an acute injection of orphanage.
Bright memory ...
About the death of Arseniy Borisovich last night, they transmitted in sufficient detail in the news of Deutschefunk (National Radio). Who is, why the "memorial" is important, etc.
All the same, in Russia, many do not know what the “memorial” means for modern Europe, the culture of memory, cultural policy, and for politics regarding Russia as a whole. This, the concerns of the Roginsky and a small group of other "memorials" for Europeans were the brightest and most understandable side of the Russian reality, justifying the hope that in Russia it could be different.
In Vedomosti, Andrei Kolesnikov writes about Arsenia Borisovich:
He knew the price of the Stalinist state, and the post -Zlestalinsky, and Yeltsin, and the current. “What do you think,” said Roginsky, “the archives so opened in the days of Yeltsin?” Nothing of the kind". He belonged to the category of people who, in his own words, always "or attributed something, or forgave anything." Moreover, after a short break, she returned to this practice today. And Roginsky had to continue resistance. Life made a circle. Going into the courtyard of the Memorial with a pack “Parliament of Knight Blue”, he talked about how to protect his organization. If you call a spade a spade - how to save the memory of the repressed by the state. By the way, the dissident collections for which the Roginsky historian sat down were called: "Memory." The state, which is frantically fighting for total historical amnesia and bringing the story to the poster and comic book, was and remained the enemy of Arseny Borisovich, who quietly, smoking and ironic, but restored with iron sequence. A bit - the size of human life.
Svetlana Aleksievich and Svetlana Gannushkina, as well as close associates of Nikita Petrov , recall in Snoba about Roginsky:
For the first time I met him in December 1988. Then I was engaged in history as an amateur-underground. It was he who told me amazing words: "Old man, stop sitting underground, it's time to go out into people!" Since then I have been in the Memorial.
I remember him as a person who has discovered new horizons for the study of history for me. My work began with him in a non -governmental public organization, the task of which is to tell what people have always been silent about.
His departure is an irreparable loss for the Memorial. He was a humanitarian in the good sense of the word: with a classic education, a student of the Lotman school. A man who, in the bowels of Soviet society, directed all his efforts to return to us a true story, and did this when it was impossible to do it. The stage of work that led him to dissidentiality and prison became the foundation for the Memorial society.
Arseny Borisovich is not only our friend, but also a good teacher. I think the memory of him is difficult to fit in some words. Our memory of him is all that he did. Everything that continues to live.
A large selection of comments on historians and human rights activists was made by Medusa . For example, Alexander Daniel B:
I met Arseny on August 21, 1968 in the city of Tartu - on the day of the input of the Soviet troops Czechoslovakia. At this time, I entered the University of Tartu, and Arseny had already graduated from him and received a distribution to school, but he did not want to work there. When he arrived there, he went to the director, and he told him right away: “Well, what will I arrange you? All the same, now the war will be and you will be taken into the army. ”
On the same day, he returned to Tartu, and we ended up with him in the same company. All conversations that evening were only on one topic. We were all in despair: we drank, swearing and fought our heads against the wall.
In early 1976, we began to work together on the Samizdat historical collection "Memory". It was created by the company of young Leningrad guys, the engine of which was Senka [Roginsky]. Then we came together closely and no longer diverged. The collection published materials about Soviet history that had no chance to be published in the Mistress, about repression, about the history of culture, science, social and religious life. What could not be discussed: documents, memoirs, research, essays, articles, bibliography. Five thick issues have been made in five years, 700-800 typewritten pages each.
As a result, they put him for this, but did not want to give a political article. Then he said that these years in the camp they gave him a lot. He evaluated these four years as very difficult, but also very useful for him in matters of understanding life.
In 1988, together we came to the Memorial - then it was already a large movement in which we went to the light and stayed. They continued to do what they did, doing the “memory” - Soviet history.
On the website of "Open Russia" Necrologist from the pen of Lyudmila Ulitskaya :
A baby or an old man, a sage or moron dies, and the universe goes out each time. Yesterday, the huge universe of the Hall of Roginsky went out. She accepted in, besides his personal qualities-nobility to self-denial, perseverance to stubbornness, fearlessness to unwrittenness-also the ability to be a bearer of social qualities: in a sense, he was a “memorial”, because he personified a special attitude to the eternal conflict between a lonely small man and a huge impersonal state, between common positive ideas and a courageous, momentary action. Over the years, there was less and less outsider in the hay, which was not related to his activities. This was and is this very living and sensitive organization in our country, and Senya walked all her life along this path, along with the Memorial.
Yesterday Senya Roginsky died. Но «Мемориал», в который он вложил себя настолько, насколько вообще человек может отдавать себя делу, остается. Они стали как будто синонимами. И даже не надо предлагать назвать российский «Мемориал» именем Сени Рогинского. Он и так — его имени...
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Ivan Belyaev
Social Networks Editor Radio Liberty