PLN FM, 11.11.2022

Photo: Lev Shlosberg / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

The leader of the Pskov branch of Yabloko, Lev Shlosberg, commented on the air of the “Day Watch” programme on the PLN FM radio station on the proposal to resume the work of the commission on perpetuating the memory of victims of political repression, with which Dmitry Shakhov, Commissioner for Human Rights in the Pskov Region, addressed the regional authorities and political parties leaders in the 85 anniversary of the start of the Great Terror in the USSR.

“The work of the commission on perpetuating the memory of the victims of political repression should not have ended at all, because the study of the personal files of the repressed has not been completed. A little more than 45,000 repressed people in the Pskov region underwent rehabilitation [rehabilitation of the repressed means recognition that they were repressed without fault and implementation of their right to recovery of their rights], while more than 64,000 people were repressed.

Since 1995, there were published 15 volumes of the outstanding encyclopedic edition “Not to Forget”. The last volume came out in 2004. The publication needs to go on, and it can be continue only if the commission continues to work with the Federal Security Service, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Memorial [human rights] society, and all relatives of the victims of repression.

I cannot but recall that when on October 30, 2007 the foundation stone was opened in front of the Myrrhbearers Cemetery at the site of the future memorial to the victims of political repressions, it was called the foundation stone at the site of the future memorial. In 2008, the city administration, the Memorial society, and the city department of architecture held an open architectural competition for this memorial. But all stopped at the competition stage.

The Pskov region, unfortunately, differs from other regions of Russia: we have only one memorial sign for the victims of repressions for the entire region. This is a stone at the site of the future memorial. In the Novgorod region, there is a memorial to the victims of repression in every district, because the first Governor of the Novgorod region, Mikhail Prusak, was from a family of the repressed.

The Russian state has already begun political repression. This is not a presumed danger, this is the reality of our times. According to the official data of the Memorial Society, 502 people in our country who fell under the state Moloch are now political prisoners. More than half of them are people who were imprisoned for their religious beliefs, not for their political beliefs, but for religious ones.

To the greatest regret, the Russian state is arranged in such a way today, 502,000 and even 5 million repressed can emerge out of 502 [repressed] people just within a few years. Therefore, the struggle for perpetuating the memory of the victims of the repressions of the 20th century is a struggle for the rights and freedoms of those living in Russia today, a struggle so that they are not affected by political repressions,” Lev Shlosberg said.

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