Press Release, 6.10.2022

Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

On 5 October, the launch of the second volume of the book “The Place of Memory Sandarmokh” by imprisoned historian and human rights defender Yuri Dmitriev took place at the office of the Yabloko party in Moscow. The second volume of Yuri Dmitriev’s book “The Place of Memory Sandarmokh” includes essays and memories of victims of Stalin’s repressions of 1937 – 1938 who were shot and buried in mass graves in Sandarmokh, Karelia, documents on executions, photos of memorials, as well as the names of Sandarmokh victims. Sandarmokh is one of the largest places with mass graves of Stalin’s victims in Russia. Yuri Dmitriev has been imprisoned since 2016. In 2020, he was convicted and sentenced to 13 years in prison. In December 2021, the period of his imprisonment was extended to 15 years. Russian historians, human rights activists, lawyers and other independent observers consider the Dmitriev case to be politically motivated.

Speaking at the event Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov noted, that the daily searches and arrests that observed in Russia are the result of non-implementing the work on understanding the past of our country: the state refused to give assessment to Stalinism and the Great Terror, and now repressions became part of our lives.

“This book is about the past as of its content. However, the meaning of this book is virtually about the future. Because there can be no future if we do not comprehend the past. There can be no reconciliation if this is not discussed, if there is no real dialogue, no real conclusions. The suppression and killing of this memory is taking place, and there is no reconciliation. That is why the authors of this book, everyone who preserves and collects information about innocent people killed in repressions, does not let this truth be silenced, they are doing a great job for the future of our country,” Nikolai Rybakov said.

Anatoly Razumov, editor of the book and head of the “Returning of the Names” Centre at the Russian National Library, noted there were many places similar to Sandarmokh on the territory of the former USSR, and society even did not suspect of them.

Emilia Slabunova, a member of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko and an MP of the Legislative Assembly of the Republic of Karelia, spoke about the authorities’ attempt to “amend” Sandarmokh’s history. Correspondence with government agencies about the legality of their search works organised by the Russian Military Historical Society on the territory of Sandarmokh in 2018 was also included in the second volume of the book.

Yan Rachinsky, Chairman of the international human rights society Memorial, also took part in the launch of the book. He stressed that people should remember not only the victims of the Stalinist repressions, but also the names of the executioners. Rachinsky noted, that yet the memory of terror had been limited to information that was safe for the heirs of the executioners.

Yuri Dmitriev, a historian and human rights defender, who discovered Sandarmokh in the late 1990s, is now in prisoner in a Mordovian penal colony. Despite this, according to his lawyer Viktor Anufriev, the process of defence of Yuri Dmitriev continues, and he maintains a working mood and thinks about a new book.