About
Memorial (operating in Europe as International Memorial Society) is an organization dedicated to documenting Soviet-era repression and political persecution. Memorial’s work included compiling lists of victims, creating databases of those persecuted under Stalinist and later Soviet policies, and preserving private testimonies of survivors. In addition, Memorial collected documents from family archives, photographs, and objects and works of art related to forced labor camps and political repression. Following Memorials forced dissolution in 2021, much of this work was erased as digital records were taken offline and physical records were seized, significantly restricting access to these collections and effectively erasing key evidence of Soviet repression. Memorial, which operates in Russia, has faced persecution by the Russian Government beginning in 2008 during raids on their offices where authorities confiscated hard disks containing two decades of research and archival material. In 2014, Memorial was designated as a foreign agent under the 2012 Foreign Agent Law. In 2015, the organization faced accusations from the government related to its activities, which were framed as actions against the interest of the Russian state. Finally, in 2021, the Russian Prosecutor General’s office submitted a lawsuit to the Russian Supreme Court to close Memorial, Memorial International, and the Memorial Human Rights Centre over alleged violations of the Foreign Agent Law. Memorial was liquidated in December of 2021 and their appeal of the court’s decision was denied in February 2022.
Memorial and Memory counters Russian historical revisionism by reconstructing suppressed narratives of Soviet-era repression. Following the forced closure of Memorial, an organization dedicated to documenting political persecution, much of its archival material was seized or taken offline, severely restricting access to crucial historical records. Our project seeks to counter this erasure by prioritizing the perseveration and amplification of personal narratives once documented by Memorial, alongside additional oral histories preserved outside of Russia.