Научная статья на тему 'Victim's categorizations: making sense of purges in Karelia and on Solovki'

Victim's categorizations: making sense of purges in Karelia and on Solovki Текст научной статьи по специальности «Философия, этика, религиоведение»

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COLLECTIVE MEMORY / SOLOVETSKIE ISLANDS / KARELIA / SANDARMOKH / DIFFICULT PASTS / VICTIMHOOD / КОЛЛЕКТИВНАЯ ПАМЯТЬ / СОЛОВКИ / КАРЕЛИЯ / САНДАРМОХ / ТРУДНОЕ ПРОШЛОЕ / ЖЕРТВЫ

Аннотация научной статьи по философии, этике, религиоведению, автор научной работы — Khlevnyuk Daria

I am grateful to the Polish Center for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding (especially Paulina Baranowska, Olimpia Bronowicka, and Maciej Wyrwa), Zuzanna Bogumti, Tatiana Voronina, Sofia Tchouikina, and Maigorzata Giowacka-Grajper for making this research trip possible. Exploring Solovki and Karelia with coparticipants of the summer school was an unforgettable experience for which I am thankful to all of them, but most of all to my roommate and partner in crime Ekaterina Klimenko. My advisor Daniel Levy was extremely helpful in discussions about categorizations of victims, and many of the ideas presented in this essay came to life in these discussions. Some of the data I use here was obtained during my own research at the same sites that became possible thanks to a 2017 Dissertation Research Grant from the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. During the "Archipelago of Common Memory" Summer School our group traveled through Karelia to the Solovetskie Islands. Participants of the school visited museum exhibitions dedicated to the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal in Medvezh'egorsk (the former center of the canal's construction) and Povenets (the canal's current administrative headquarters); the Solovetskii museum, including exhibitions about the "new martyrs" and the history of the Solovetskii camp; Sandarmokh, the site of mass executions of Soviet victims; and memorial sites on Solovetskie Islands. This essay presents preliminary results of my research in which I focus on the narratives presented in different memory sites, including museums and memorials. I show how the victims of Soviet purges are portrayed at the different sites. One of the issues that became apparent during the summer school is that narratives about purges represent victims of these purges differently. A categorization of victims is often present. On Solovki, in the monastery exhibition, the victims are categorized by their religion, and Orthodox victims are made more visible than others. On the Avenue of Remembrance on Solovki and on Sandarmokh victims are categorized by their nationality: diasporas have put up memorials to their compatriots. At the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal Museum in Povenets, on the other hand, victims are represented through the eyes of the canal administration as either hard working or lazy. The categorization of victims illustrates some issues surrounding Russian memory of the Soviet purges more broadly-the lack of a single national narrative about the Soviet past and the drive to make sense of this difficult past.

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КАТЕГОРИЗАЦИЯ ЖЕРТВ:ОСМЫСЛЕНИЕ РЕПРЕССИЙ В КАРЕЛИИ И НА СОЛОВКАХ

Во время летней школы «Архипелаг общей памяти» наша группа путешествовала по Карелии и Соловецким островам. Во время поездки мы посетили музейные выставки, посвященные Беломорско-Балтийскому каналу в Медвежьегорске (город, в котором ранее располагался центр строительства канала) и Повенце (музей находится в здании нынешней администрации канала); Соловецкий музей (в том числе выставки о новомучениках в монастыре и об истории Соловецких лагерей в бараке за пределами монастыря); место массовых расстрелов жертв советских репрессий Сандармох и мемориалы на Соловецких островах. Это эссе посвящено предварительным результатам наших исследований. В частности, в нем рассматривается то, как в нарративах музейных экспозиций и мест памяти изображены жертвы советских репрессий. Одна из сразу замеченных во время поездки особенностей различия в том, как показывают жертв в музеях и местах памяти. Категоризация жертв происходит везде, при этом в разных местах категоризация проходит на разных основаниях. На Соловках жертв категоризируют по принадлежности к той или иной конфессии. В итоге православные жертвы заметнее всех остальных. На Алее памяти на Соловках и в Сандармохе жертвы разделены по национальности: диаспоры устанавливают памятники своим соотечественникам. В музее Беломорканала в Повенце о жертвах говорят как будто бы с точки зрения лагерной администрации, которая оценивала заключенных в категориях эффективности их работы на канале. Категоризация жертв отражает более общие проблемы современной российской памяти о советских репрессиях: отсутствие общенациональной памяти об этом периоде и желание осмыслить это трудное прошлое.

Текст научной работы на тему «Victim's categorizations: making sense of purges in Karelia and on Solovki»

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iCTiMS' CATEGORiZATiONS: MAKiNG sense of PuRGEs In KARELiA AND ON SOLOVKI

Daria Khlevnyuk

Daria Khlevnyuk is a PhD candidate in sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Address for correspondence: Department of Sociology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4356, USA. [email protected].

I am grateful to the Polish Center for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding (especially Paulina Baranowska, Olimpia Bronowicka, and Maciej Wyrwa), Zuzanna BogumH, Tatiana Voronina, Sofia Tchouikina, and Maigorzata Giowacka-Grajper for making this research trip possible. Exploring Solovki and Karelia with coparticipants of the summer school was an unforgettable experience for which I am thankful to all of them, but most of all to my roommate and partner in crime Ekaterina Klimenko. My advisor Daniel Levy was extremely helpful in discussions about categorizations of victims, and many of the ideas presented in this essay came to life in these discussions. Some of the data I use here was obtained during my own research at the same sites that became possible thanks to a 2017 Dissertation Research Grant from the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies.

During the "Archipelago of Common Memory" Summer School our group traveled through Karelia to the Solovetskie Islands. Participants of the school visited museum exhibitions dedicated to the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal in Medvezh'egorsk (the former center of the canal's construction) and Povenets (the canal's current administrative headquarters); the Solovetskii museum, including exhibitions about the "new martyrs" and the history of the Solovetskii camp; Sandarmokh, the site of mass executions of Soviet victims; and memorial sites on Solovetskie Islands. This essay presents preliminary results of my research in which I focus on the narratives presented in different memory sites, including museums and memorials. I show how the victims of Soviet purges are portrayed at the different sites. One of the issues that became apparent during the summer school is that narratives about purges represent victims of these purges differently. A categorization of victims is often present. On Solovki, in the monastery exhibition, the victims are categorized by their religion, and Orthodox victims are made more visible than others. On the Avenue of Remembrance on Solovki and on Sandarmokh victims are categorized by their nationality: diasporas have put up memorials to their compatriots. At the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal Museum in Povenets, on the other hand, victims are represented through the eyes of the canal administration as either hard working or lazy. The categorization of victims illustrates some issues surrounding Russian memory of the Soviet purges more broadly—the lack of a single national narrative about the Soviet past and the drive to make sense of this difficult past.

Keywords: Collective Memory; Solovetskie Islands; Karelia; Sandаrmokh,• Difficult Pasts; Victimhood

DOI: 10.25285/2078-1938-2018-10-2-122-133

In the past decades a new memory culture has emerged—one that is more global and travels across borders; is cosmopolitan and treats events that happened in other nations with respect and interest; is more attentive to tragedies than to triumphs. My research deals with the question of whether and how this global memory culture filters through into national and local contexts. More precisely, I study Russian memories of the difficult past as represented in regional museums. In the summer of 2017 I was part of an international group of graduate students traveling to the Solovetskie Islands, commonly known as Solovki, an archipelago in the White Sea. We visited museums in Karelia and on Solovki, sites of mass graves, and other memorial sites at these locations. While this trip was not a fully developed research expedition, for me it was an invaluable experience and a chance to test and gather information for a larger research project I am conducting. This essay is dedicated to one of the preliminary findings of this project and includes discussion of my theoretical framework, methodology, and a brief description of my results.

This essay is based on an analysis of four museum exhibitions and two memorial sites. Two of the museums are situated in Karelia. One is in Medvezh'egorsk, a town near the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal that was the center of the canal's administration at the time of its construction in the early 1930s. Today Medvezh'egorsk is a rather large town and the museum is dedicated to its history, including the history of the canal. The second Karelian museum is situated in Povenets, in the current canal's administrative building and thus is a corporate museum dedicated solely to the canal's history. Two museum exhibitions are located on Solovki, an archipelago where a well-known monastery is located. There, on these islands, the Soviet regime established one of its first labor camps. One exhibition is situated in the barracks, outside of the monastery on the main Solovetskii island, and is dedicated to the camp's history. Another exhibition is situated inside the monastery and is focused primarily on Orthodox victims of Soviet purges. Finally, I discuss two memorial sites we visited during the trip. One is on the main Solovetskii island—the Avenue of Remembrance, where memorial stones and crosses commemorating different groups of victims have been set up. The second, Sandar-mokh in Karelia, is the site of mass executions of the Soviet regime's victims, where there are commemorative stones and crosses as well as individual commemorative plaques.

STUDYING MEMORY MUSEUMS

The newly developing memory culture has been studied from different points of view, and consequently scholars have used notions of global, world, international, transnational, transcultural, and cosmopolitan memories to analyze it (Assmann and Conrad 2010; Erll 2011; Huyssen 2003; Levy and Sznaider 2006; Misztal 2010; Reading 2011). In general, they argue that the new global memory culture presupposes a shift from heroic narratives (such as the USSR's victory in the Great Patriotic War) to tragic narratives. Heroes and victors are not in the limelight any-

more—victims are. Collective memory is partly based on victims' testimonies. The Holocaust remains the ultimate memory for many countries, a universal symbol and an exemplar for commemorating other difficult pasts (Alexander 2012; Levy and Sznaider 2006).

One of the traditional media used to communicate collective memories has been the museum. Unsurprisingly, history museums have changed following changes in memory cultures. Susan Sontag (2003) calls the new types of museums that have emerged "memory museums." These museums share many features, one of which is that exhibitions usually focus on victims, events are narrated from a victim's standpoint, and victims are represented as persons with individual stories (Engelhardt 2002; Hansen-Glucklich 2014; Linenthal 2001; Sodaro 2011).

In this essay I focus solely on this aspect of memory museums. Basically, a victim-centered museum means that whether one looks at museums as texts (Bal 1992) or as performances (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1997, 1998), at the center of their narratives should be a victim—or, more often, a number of victims. My approach was to document museum exhibitions, observe guided tours, and, if possible, conduct interviews with employees to discern the narratives produced by a museum. Each narrative is a story developed around specific protagonists. In my case, I was looking to identify who the main characters in museum narratives were, inquire whether victims of the purges were among them, and analyze how they were portrayed. As this essay will show, such an approach is useful not only in the case of museum exhibitions but also memorial sites more broadly.

VICTIMS' CATEGORIZATIONS: THREE CASES

During the summer school one aspect of victims' commemoration became strikingly evident: not all victims were treated the same way. In some cases victims were divided into horizontal groups—for instance, by nation. In other cases there were hierarchies: one group of victims was presented as more deserving of sympathy than others. Such divisions are not unique to the Russian case; they are used in other countries and contexts as well. However, they raise questions about the nature of victimhood, victims' status, and commemorative agendas.

Elazar Barkan (2001) refers to this division as the distinction between deserving and undeserving victims. Deserving victims are true victims with no blame, who suffered for no reason and deserve to be remembered. Undeserving victims, on the contrary, do not inspire sympathy and are seen as somehow less worthy of it, as if they brought their suffering upon themselves. For instance, postwar German refugees were not seen as war victims because their identity as Germans and, thus, as perpetrators trumped their victimhood status. Jean-Michel Chaumont (1997) writes about competition among victims: situations where victims' groups have to compete over who is deserving and who is not. During our summer school we encountered three categories of victims. The most prominent was the religious categorization that we saw on Solovki. There, victims are divided into Orthodox and nonreligious victims, with non-Orthodox religious victims landing somewhere in the middle. On Solovki

and in Sandarmokh, there was another division: by nationality. Memorials on both sites were erected primarily by nation-states or diasporas to their compatriots. Finally, in the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal Museum in Povenets there is a less pronounced categorization of victims that, on the other hand, highlights a different interpretation of the purges: there were inmates who worked hard building the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal and inmates who slacked.

SOLOVKI: THE NEW MARTYRS

The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) was heavily impacted by the Soviet purges. From the early years of the Soviet regime clergymen were persecuted and Russian Orthodoxy, as well as other religions, was outlawed. Nowadays, the revived ROC has dedicated substantial efforts to the commemoration of Orthodox victims of Soviet repressions. These repressions are presented first and foremost as persecutions of the faith; Orthodox believers, especially the clergy, were the main targets, and their sufferings were heroic deeds. Commemorative efforts included the mass canonization of Orthodox victims, the erection of crosses, chapels, shrines, and churches dedicated to the "new martyrs," the painting of their icons, and the creation of commemorative dates. The new Russian martyr narrative is a mytho-religious interpretation of the Gulag's history that includes references to biblical prophecies (BogumU, Moran, and Harrowell 2015).

There are, however, many issues with the new martyrs. First, who should be considered among them? There is not much information about the conditions of their martyrdom. Did they renounce their faith or profess it under interrogation? Did they give evidence about anyone else or did they refuse to speak? The only documents that can provide answers to these questions are transcripts of interrogations, but historians question their reliability (Semenenko-Basin 2010). Then there is the obvious break from the early Christian tradition of martyrdom that presupposed that the faithful had the choice of renouncing their faith or dying. Martyrs chose to die for their beliefs. Among the many clergymen and ordinary members of their congregations persecuted in the USSR, none were given a choice to leave their cells as newly professed atheists. In other words, while they were persecuted because of their beliefs, they did not have the option of saving themselves or standing up for their faith and dying as heroes (Mitrov 2003).

While there are certain problems with identifying new martyrs and creating the narrative around them, this narrative is becoming stronger and stronger as the ROC dedicates more efforts to the cause. The new martyr memory movement is most prominent at three sites: the former Butovo firing range in the southern part of Moscow region, Solovki, and the Church of the Resurrection of Christ and the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church in Moscow. The first is the site of the mass executions of 1937-1938, where many victims were Orthodox clergymen. Solovetskii Camp was one of the first camps, and significant numbers of clergymen were imprisoned or killed there. The Church of the Resurrection of Christ and the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church was recently built at the Sretenskii Monastery in Moscow.

Butovo is a more developed site of memory: there is a new church dedicated to the new Russian martyrs and confessors, several crosses, and a massive monument to all the victims buried at the site.1 Solovki, on the other hand, has more symbolic significance. It is an iconic site, the initial camp where the Gulag system took root, where prisoners suffered for years on end and many succumbed to painful deaths. The main cross in Butovo is the Solovetskii cross that was brought from Solovki in a religious procession in 2007. The procession was, in a sense, a pilgrimage through significant sites of Gulag history on the way from Solovki to Moscow (Bogumtt et al. 2015).

The ambiguity of new Russian martyrdom seems not to concern museum employees on Solovki. The museum changed in recent years after it was merged with the monastery. The museum as an organization remains independent of the ROC. However, most female museum employees follow the Orthodox dress code—probably not because of explicit rules but as a matter of personal preference. The countless tourists belong to two groups: historical tourists seeking guides from the museum and pilgrims with guides from the pilgrimage service. Tours from both services follow the same routes. However, the narratives constructed by each are different. The sole employee of the history department who worked on camp history has resigned, and now the main topic is the new martyrs. The new permanent exhibition will be dedicated to the new martyrs; all planned future exhibitions will also be dedicated to them. The existing exhibition about the camp system and its victims (situated in the barracks) might not be decommissioned, but it will be overwhelmed by the new martyrs narrative broadcast everywhere else on the islands, including via another already existing permanent exhibition in the monastery.

The proliferation of the new martyrs narrative on Solovki may be concerning, however, in the other two museums we have visited during the summer school, persecution on religious grounds was for the most part overlooked. In Medvezh'egorsk District Museum, dedicated to the history of the Karelian town, for instance, the topic of religion is only briefly mentioned: "The special character of repressions in Zaonezhskii region is that there they were aimed at the clergy. Many clergymen and most active members of parishes were repressed. As a result, a considerable number of women (21) were arrested there" (Medvezh'egorsk museum). The same is true of the permanent exhibition in the Solovki barracks. There the topic of religion is mentioned only in relation to the Solovetskii monks, who stayed after the monastery was converted into a camp, and famous religious figures such as Orthodox priest and philosopher Pavel Florensky. The mass repressions of clergymen are not narrated as a separate story.

The permanent exhibition in the Solovetskii Monastery, on the other hand, is dedicated solely to the history of persecution of religion. Visitors learn about

1 The latest memorial is more neutral than the others already erected at the site. However, the unveiling ceremony reminded everyone who controlled the narrative: most of the speakers were from the Russian Orthodox Church, and the ceremony was accompanied by church music sung by a church choir.

a hundred clergymen and lay faithful who were arrested and detained on Solovki. The only information available about most of them is a photo and a brief biography. Several personalities are given more space in the exhibition: for instance, aforementioned Father Pavel Florensky and Father Vasilii Gundiaev, grandfather of Kirill, the current Patriarch of Moscow. There are several explications that construct a general narrative of the exhibit. Their common sentiment is that the period of imprisonment of the clergy was a period of heroic religious martyrdom:

In the camp the clergy bore themselves with great dignity and bravery, even though they suffered not only physically but also morally as everywhere they looked they saw religion being mocked.... Clergymen tried to get the assignments where they could help people, so many of them worked at the hospitals, alleviating the sufferings of religious patients, anointing, and giving communion in secret. In secret, they were able to pray, help morally, and even turn to faith many of the prisoners who were atheist before. (Solovetskii State Historical Museum, exhibition text)

Clergymen's religious work, the exhibition claims, was effective enough to sustain the Russian people through the seven decades of the USSR. Their imprisonment is compared to Jesus's crucifixion: "without a doubt, they [clergymen] ascended the Cross, and their parishes followed" (Solovetskii State Historical Museum, exhibition text). Interestingly, besides being described as religious martyrs fighting with the regime through their day-to-day service, the clergymen are also cast as exemplary prisoners who never protested any assignment and never complained about diseases (but "never compromised with the camp authorities" either). They were, in fact, so trustworthy that some of them were assigned to work at the post office, a prestigious assignment: clergymen did not steal.

In general, it seems that the permanent exhibition in Solovetskii Monastery follows the traditional martyrdom narrative. The lives of the martyrs are presented through their heroic deeds. Their activity strengthens and broadens the Orthodox faith; they are icons. The issues with the new martyrdom narrative and with the application, discussed above, of the classic Christian genre to these particular martyrs are overlooked. Possibly due to this existing ambiguity, there is not much of a grand narrative present in the exhibition. Such a narrative might be in the making, and the new exhibition could introduce an overarching interpretation of repressions in general and repressions against religious people in particular. However, the head of the history department in the museum described the new exhibition as dedicated primarily to Orthodox personalities, more of their biographies will be described in even greater detail than in the existing exhibition in the monastery. In any case, the Christian narrative of martyrdom excludes nonreli-gious prisoners. The exhibition in the monastery is dedicated to clergymen and members of their congregations. Other victims remain in the "blind spot" of this narrative.

solovki and sandarmokh: nationality

If the new martyrs narrative distinguishes between followers of different religions, the other distinction we have encountered is between nationalities. This division was less obvious in the museum expositions we visited but was very prominent at the memorial sites. The first site, Sandarmokh, is a mass grave of victims of terror, many of whom were brought from Solovki and shot. The second memorial site, on Solovki, commonly referred to as the Avenue of Remembrance, is a small square where memorial stones, crosses, and memorials to the victims of the Solovetskii camp have been erected. At both sites most memorials are dedicated to victims belonging to particular nationalities and were erected by their contemporary compatriots.

Sandarmokh was found by Karelian activist Iurii Dmitriev, who has been working hard to facilitate the commemoration of victims at Sandarmokh. This site of mass executions was opened to the public in October 1997. At the time of opening, an Orthodox chapel, an Orthodox cross, a Catholic cross (with writings in Russian and in Polish), a memorial to the Solovetskii prisoners shot there, and a memorial cross to Ukrainians were also unveiled.2 These days, one can find on Sandarmokh more than a dozen memorials dedicated to representatives of different nationalities: Finns, Lithuanians, Moldovans, Germans, Poles, and so on.3 This approach to commemoration by diasporic and national communities is most probably related to Dmitriev's understanding of collective memory. For him, the project of commemorating victims of terror is a nation-building project, a patriotic endeavor, an attempt to revive "peoples":

I want people who live in the republic [Karelia] to see themselves as a part of "the people." Not just population. Do you understand how "people" are different from a population? People are those who know their history, language, culture, traditions ... a population budges. So, to rule a people one needs knowledge and has to follow traditions; populations can be ruled however one wants. The people do not bend; they will survive everything. A population can be bent easily. So, to survive in these difficult times, to have a government that is democratically elected, accountable as any other authority, for this, one needs to educate the people. I use Sandarmokh as a practice ground for it. I talk to one of the diasporas, give them lists of their compatriots—parts of people, right? I tell them that they are all the same people. And your guys got into trouble; they were killed, no one but you can take care of them. Why you? Well, because you are part of the people. And they are part of the same people. You are one people. They are dead; you are alive. And slowly, slowly.. You know, the people start to think that they are indeed the people. And the more there are peoples, the less we can be bent!4

2 "Ubyli v neizvestnost'," Karta pamiati (https://sand.mapofmemory.org/long-2/).

3 "Karta pamiatnikov," Karta pamiati (https://sand.mapofmemory.org/map/).

4 "Put' k personal'noi Golgofe: Interv'iu Iuriia Dmitrieva," Obshchestvo Memorial (https:// www.memo.ru/ru-ru/biblioteka/dokumentalnyj-proekt-istoriya-memoriala/put-k-personalnoj-golgofe-intervyu-yuriya-dmitrieva/).

"Peoples" from different nations should erect monuments to their compatriots. Russian "people" should know their history; more specifically, "people" of each village should know the names of victims from their villages. Dmitriev used this logic in the victim logs he compiled, during his work with students, and in commemorative work.

Many blamed me for organizing the book not in alphabetical order but geographically. Otherwise, it would have been easier to find whoever you are looking for. I say: no, dear, there is no easy way. If you don't know where he was arrested, where his roots are—your roots—you'll read the book three times, cuss me out but you'll never forget where you are from.5

A similar situation has occurred on Solovki, where in a square on the Big Solovetskii Island several stones and crosses were erected. The square is situated at the site of the former camp cemetery and next to the former monastery cemetery. The first memorial, the Solovetskii Stone, was erected there in 1989 by the Solovetskii museum and Memorial Society from Saint Petersburg. The Avenue of Remembrance was founded in 1998. In 1999 an association of anesthesiologists erected an Orthodox cross in memory of the 60th anniversary of the camp's dissolution and victims of the mass executions of 1933. After that cross was put up, other memorials emerged, many to victims grouped by their nationalities and ethnicities: Ukrainians, Yakuts, and others.6

A very telling story is about the erection of two memorial stones—one at each site—dedicated to Russian victims of terror. While I did not hear the story of the Sandarmokh Stone, the Solovetskii Stone was put in the Avenue of Remembrance around 2016 by a local businessman working in tourism. For him, it was a question of a sort of justice: if there are stones and crosses dedicated to other nationalities, why is there none for Russians? His question was rhetorical; however, if it were not, the possible answer would be that, obviously, there is no Russian diaspora—or any similar community—to deal with the issue. The real question is: why has this lack of a memorial to Russians become so visible now? Possibly, due to a growing nationalism—especially after the escalation of the conflict with Ukraine over Crimea and paramilitary activities in Eastern Ukraine—there is a common feeling that any other nation's commemorative efforts should be matched by Russian ones.

Another, possibly even more important, question is whether there is a need to commemorate victims by their nationality. We asked museum employees and activists on Solovki about this national division in commemoration. It seems that there are two opinions about it. There are those who are critical, who believe that a commemorative stone to all victims would have been enough: "All are dead and lying there. As long as we are divided—and love separating ourselves from one another—

5 Iurii Dmitriev, "I takoi to li ston, to li shelest vetra: I menia vspomni, i menia, i menia..." Colta.ru, February 2, 2018 (https://www.colta.ru/articles/society/17237?page=2).

6 "Lagernoe kladbishche vozle Solovetskogo kremlia," Karta pamiati (https://www. mapofmemory.org/29-65).

all of this [atrocity] will keep happening. Brother will go against brother" (tour guide, Solovki). On the other hand, an activist who supports the Russian stone claims that the commemoration of distinct peoples is the correct way to approach commemoration because it is free of the Soviet ideology, which tried to obliterate national and ethnic differences and, instead, to create an artificially homogeneous Soviet society.

In fact, constructing collective memory around nationality is the oldest trick in the book. The whole idea of collective memory began with national memory, memory as a cornerstone of nations (Renan 1990) that are, in reality, "imagined communities" (Anderson 1991) with "invented traditions" (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992). In a sense, what is new about this division of commemoration in Solovki and Sandarmokh is that these sites become meeting points for postsocialist countries' memory cultures; these are sites where a dialogue between memory activists from different countries could occur and a consensus about the postsocialist traumatic memory of repressions could be formed.

PoVENETS: THE HERoiSM oF SLAVERY

Finally, another category of victims that we have encountered is classification through their relationship to forced labor. In fact, this is how the camp administration classified prisoners: those who worked well got more food; those who did not complete their work plans got less. This system of motivation was, literally, torture. This is how this system is described in the museum exposition in Medvezh'egorsk:

The less the prisoner worked, the less food he got. Those prisoners who did not meet the norms got the "penalty food rations." These actions led to fast deterioration and deaths of prisoners. Even food rations for the shock workers who exceeded their output norms did not satisfy their caloric needs.

However, in Povenets, the director of the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal Museum sees the distinction between hardworking prisoners and everyone else in a more positive way. The museum is situated in one of the buildings of the current canal's administration and is run by the canal's management. It is a corporate museum that was established 14 years ago by a family of canal employees. For the director, the value of this canal created by the slave labor of prisoners is indisputable. She believes that this canal was vital to the survival of the "young Soviet state" and without it the country would have been destroyed by its enemies:

Of course, it was a difficult, tough job. Despite it all, people put effort into their work. They were passionate about it. Some died here, some survived. But they knew that this canal was vital for the country. They deserve eternal memory.

She is aware that the construction of the canal killed a lot of people, mostly those who had been unlawfully arrested and sentenced to hard labor. For her, it is a question of whether the goal was worth the sacrifice. People who died during

the construction are, for her, heroes comparable to the heroes of the Second World War. Possibly, her interpretation of Gulag history is influenced by the national memory framework: the narrative of the war martyrs, of the costs paid for the survival of the country. The canal for her is a national accomplishment similar to the victory in the Great Patriotic War. Consequently, those who built it are also martyrs.

OONOLUSiON

Our trip to the Solovetskie Islands and Karelia highlighted that one of the features of the commemoration of Soviet purges is the categorization of victims. Categorizations vary, are influenced by different factors, and depend on a relationship to a commemorative community. On Solovki the religious community that is forming in and around the museum is transforming the narrative towards a traditional Christian understanding of martyrdom. The victims are presented as mostly Orthodox; they are shown as martyrs whose deaths and sufferings were not in vain but sacrifices for the faith. In a sense, a similar categorization is presented in Povenets, where in the museum narrative victimhood is transformed into martyrdom. Here, the prisoners gave their lives and health for the well-being of the state. A national framework is invoked in the third categorization system that we encountered both on Solovki and at Sandarmokh. There, victims are grouped by their nationality and ethnicity.

The bigger question is why there is this tendency to categorize victims. One answer is obvious: collective memory is strongly connected with identification. We remember those who we identify with in one way or another. Thus, the Orthodox community remembers their fellow faithful; national and ethnic diasporas erect memorials to their compatriots; employees of the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal tell the stories of those who put hard work into the construction of their current workplace. However, it seems that this is not the only answer.

The categorization of victims helps to make sense of the purges. In a way, it is the process of categorization in a Kantian sense: attributing characteristics to objects to understand the surrounding world. There is no overarching narrative about the purges in local Russian communities, and different agents come up with their narratives. Categorizing victims helps them not only to identify with the victims but also to highlight what is significant about the story of the Great Terror and what is less significant—what the goal is today of narrating this story. Is the story of the faith the main story? Or is the goal to strengthen "peoples"? Moreover, the categorization of victims helps in cases where the history of the purges is ambiguous in itself. For instance, for those who live near the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal it is obvious that the victims were not just object of purges but also agents in a great construction. Unlike in the history of the Holocaust where victims were scrapped off the surface of the Earth, victims of the Soviet regime often left behind mega projects such as the aforementioned canal. To annihilate the memory of these efforts may be problematic as well.

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Категоризация жертв: осмысление репрессий в Карелии и на соловках

Дарья Хлевнюк

Дарья Хлевнюк - аспирант (PhD candidate) факультета социологии Университета штата Нью-Йорк в Стоуни Брук. Адрес для переписки: Department of Sociology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 117944356, USA. [email protected].

Во время летней школы «Архипелаг общей памяти» наша группа путешествовала по Карелии и Соловецким островам. Во время поездки мы посетили музейные выставки, посвященные Беломорско-Балтийскому каналу в Медвежьегорске (город, в котором ранее располагался центр строительства канала) и Повенце (музей находится в здании нынешней администрации канала); Соловецкий музей (в том числе выставки о новомучениках в монастыре и об истории Соловецких лагерей в бараке за пределами монастыря); место массовых расстрелов жертв советских репрессий Сандармох и мемориалы на Соловецких островах. Это эссе посвящено предварительным результатам наших исследований. В частности, в нем рассматривается то, как в нарративах музейных экспозиций и мест памяти изображены жертвы советских репрессий. Одна из сразу замеченных во время поездки особенностей - различия в том, как показывают жертв в музеях и местах памяти. Категоризация жертв происходит везде, при этом в разных местах категоризация проходит на разных основаниях. На Соловках жертв категоризируют по принадлежности к той или иной конфессии. В итоге православные жертвы заметнее всех остальных. На Алее памяти на Соловках и в Сандармохе жертвы разделены по национальности: диаспоры устанавливают памятники своим соотечественникам. В музее Беломорканала в Повенце о жертвах говорят как будто бы с точки зрения лагерной администрации, которая оценивала заключенных в категориях эффективности их работы на канале. Категоризация жертв отражает более общие проблемы современной российской памяти о советских репрессиях: отсутствие общенациональной памяти об этом периоде и желание осмыслить это трудное прошлое.

Ключевые слова: коллективная память; Соловки; Карелия; Сандармох; трудное прошлое; жертвы

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