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Bound by nostalgia
Nick
Holdsworth, contributor to the Times Higher Education Supplement and several
British newspapers; author of the book Moscow: The Beautiful and the Damned, Life
in Russia in Transition (Andre Deutsch, London, 2000). |
A 1993 law gives historians access to archives, a master key to the past.
A
grim reminder of a Soviet gulag in Siberia. |
In
Russia, a new generation of historians is in the making, but society at large does
not seem pressed to question the darker moments of the Soviet era. For now, nostalgia
holds the high ground
Russian writer Viktor
Astafiev is no stranger to controversy. A war veteran, the 77-year-old Siberian is
renowned for his ruthlessly truthful stories about the Great Patriotic War, as World
War II is known in Russia.
But when his latest book, The Jolly Soldier was published last year, even
a writer of the stature of Astafiev, regarded as one of Russia’s greatest living
authors, was unprepared for the rabid reaction he met. Astafiev, who lives in the
Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, was pilloried in the press and vilified by regional
politicians for his uncompromising portrayal of the horrors of the Soviet military.
Upsetting some of the holy cows of Russian wartime myth, notably on how the nation
united to throw off the fascists with total resolve, Astafiev describes how ill-trained
boys were thrown into battle and Red Army soldiers used as cannon fodder. He also
dispels the myth that peoples of the Soviet Union were unanimously opposed to the
German invaders, instead showing that the latter were initially welcomed as liberators
from Stalin’s tyranny.
Return
to old habits
Members
of the city council, many of whom, like Astafiev are a product of Soviet wartime
Communism, voted to scrap a small local pension he was paid. Distressed by the furor,
Astafiev, 77, was admitted to hospital with heart trouble. Now back at home, neither
he nor his friends in the city will talk about an episode that strikes at the core
of a new phenomenon in post-Communist Russia: historical denial.
The Astafiev incident is but one acute example of a growing trend in Russia away
from the academic and intellectual openness that accompanied the first flush of freedom
after the collapse of the Soviet Union ten years ago.
The upheavals that followed the failed coup by Politburo hardliners in August 1991
disrupted all the norms of accepted Soviet-era secrecy. For two years, researchers,
both Russian and foreign, had a heyday as archivists opened their doors in the heady
atmosphere of freedom. Following the 1993 stand-off between Boris Yeltsin and reactionary
political forces, the new power consolidated its position. The process of forming
a new Russian state called for a review of security structures and secrecy rules.
As a result, a new law on state secrets was adopted, ruling that the majority of
documents must be declassified and made public after 30 years.
While the Russian Academy of Sciences is working with history faculties around the
country to develop a new cadre of young historians, researchers now investigating
the grim world of the Soviet past report an increasing reluctance of many archivists
to allow access to party, secret police and government documents despite the 1993
law.
The retreat from the openness of the early post-Communist years began towards the
end of the Yeltsin era. The work of the state body responsible for declassifying
secret documents ground to a halt two years ago, and directors of once open and helpful
archives have returned to the old Soviet habit of saying “no” to virtually all sensitive
requests, academics say.
Nikita Petrov, a reputed scholar and expert on the NKVD (Stalin’s secret police),
who now works with the Moscow-based human rights organization Memorial, claims that
“it is much more difficult to gain access to archives. There is a growth both in
the tendency to keep documents secret and to commercialize them—to charge for access.”
Many archivists are from the old guard, and a nostalgia for the past combined with
growing use of nationalist symbols to rally an economically and socially troubled
country allows them to slip back into their old habits.
Petrov acknowledges that the 1993 law is remarkably democratic and workable, and
that Memorial has relied upon the threat of using it to force a number of archives
to give access to specific documents. The challenge to academic freedom is not yet
a legal one, he says, but a social and personal challenge that is often harder to
identify and combat. There’s been no change in the law, but the spirit of Russia
has shifted in the last couple of years, he suggests.
Petrov’s experience is not shared by all. Natalia Yegorova, deputy director of the
Institute of Universal History, which is part of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
scotches all talk of curbs to academic freedom, apart from the recurring and thorny
issue of poverty-level pay.
“Unfortunately it is true that the state commission for declassifying documents has
not been working for the past two years, but access to archives very much depends
on which archive you go to. There are different rules in different places. Many archives,
including much of the higher (Communist) party archives, are no longer secret.”
Working on Soviet foreign policy and the Cold War, Yegorova says the main forces
limiting her work are financial. The Academy of Sciences, however, through its humanities
and scientific foundation, makes grants available to allow for an average $100 monthly
top-up to normal salaries.
“With the exception of a few difficulties accessing some archives or funding sources,
we are working now as we always have. In fact, at international conferences our American
colleagues are surprised at how fierce and controversial the debates are between
Russian researchers on historical issues,” she says.
A move by the Academy of Sciences earlier this year to force all researchers to report
contacts with foreigners caused many to fear the re-introduction of Soviet-style
controls, but nothing came of it, she said.
Petrov believes the trend to greater secrecy reflects a desire to draw a comforting
cloth of nostalgia over current difficulties. “There’s an inner unwillingness to
understand the criminal past of the country. Teachers, doctors and other state workers
are paid little and struggle to make a living. In these circumstances people often
seek mental comfort in the past,” he says. The Astafiev case is a sad illustration
of this—someone does not want the truth to be known. But we must take courage from
the fact that Astafiev wasn’t imprisoned. Even if his oppressors had this desire,
today they can’t do it.”
Teenage
truths
Others
are taking courage from what a new generation growing up in Russia is making of the
country’s past. Irina Scherbakov, a professor of history at the Russian Humanitarian
University in Moscow, recently organized a nationwide contest through Memorial encouraging
schoolchildren between 14 and 18 years old to send in essays and illustrations about
Russia in the 20th century. She received over 3,500 contributions: “Children’s entries
drew on interviews with their grandparents, Soviet-era documents from archives, family
diaries and photographs. Although the sample is not scientific, their responses give
confidence for a more frank appraisal of our history,” Scherbakov said. “Many of
them treated the past critically. It really gave us a big dose of optimism.”
It’s a bright beacon in an otherwise bleak landscape, Scherbakov concedes: “People
do not want to analyze or argue about the Soviet period; they prefer nostalgia. Life
today is too hard and many, especially older people, are loathe to face up to their
own responsibilities for the part they played during those times.” |
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