Calendar Days
I’ve often wonder why Russia’s approach to history is so skewed. The people gather around to celebrate the victory over fascism every May 9, but they forget their own citizens who unjustly had been killed at the time of peace. They pronounce their victory in Europe back in 1945, but forget that one half of the continent remained under a strong Soviet control for the next 50 years.
Sixty-six years ago today, on June 14, 1941, the Soviet troops deported 11,598 Latvians, 1,789 Jews, 761 Russians, 42 Germans and 238 others. Many events throughout the country are being held to remember those people who found special Soviet forces standing on their doorway in the wee hours of the morning. They were given one hour to pack and then they packed to Siberia or killed.
We have several other days marking the atrocities of the Soviet troops in Latvia in the 1940s. My family didn’t suffer through the Soviet period. We were not large land-owners, bourgeoisie, or anti-Soviet elements. My family were farmers in Eastern Latvia, a closed sect of the Russian Old Believers who lived there for at least two or three centuries. So, personally, I cannot feel the pain. But I can certainly understand — and remember.
In Russia, however, there’s not a single day when the people and the state officially remember the crimes of Joseph Stalin. For some, perhaps, saying bad things about the Great Leader is a taboo. I recall reading an account of one dissident who marked March 5 — the day when Stalin died — with vodka to remember those whom Stalin killed.
A country that does not remember its people who died from the hands of its own government cannot mature in a democratic society. A country that does not respect its dead cannot move into the future.
June 14th, 2007 at 21.22
Brilliant Aleks, very well said!
My father-in-law commemorates every deportation day religiously, by flying the Latvian flag, which was burried in the backyard for near 50 years!…
Pierre
July 10th, 2007 at 11.21
One of the reasons is patriotism, or more specifically, Russian patriotism. Russian patriotism or nationalism is full of contradictions. The embrace the legacy of their own history no matter if it is Lenin or Bulgakov, Stalin or Solzhenitsyn.
Another reason is that the people who suffered under the regime where a minority. Ok, a minority of tens of millions, but a minority nevertheless. People thought that it would never happen to them. It is like death penalty in the States. Its supporters are convinced that they will never be (mistakenly) sentenced to death.
Finally, even though most people suffered soviet scarcity and mismanagement, they were at the same time oppressed and oppressors. They disliked corruption and the official ideology, but benefited from it at the same time. It was part of the social mobility system.
This being said, I am Spanish and have only been to Russia many years after the fall of the USSR.
July 12th, 2007 at 9.18
Interesting post, and a good point. My “host father” here in Moscow (about 70 years old and one of the few die-hard liberals left in Russia) told me that in 1953 when he heard on the radio that Stalin had died, he and two of his closest friends managed to sneak a bottle of vodka and celebrated under the greatest of secrecy. They still toast to his death every March 5. Too bad more Russians don’t do the same…