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Death and Memory in Modern Russia

Author(s): Catherine Merridale


Source: History Workshop Journal, No. 42 (Autumn, 1996), pp. 1-18
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4289464
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ARTICLES AND ESSAYS

s .. . .. = . .. ..~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
. .

Death and Memory in Modern Russia'


by Catherine Merridale

Thisessayaimsto open a debateaboutthe problemsof deathandmemoryin


modern Russia. The memories in question are not, for the most part,
tranquilones. Twentieth-centuryRussiasaw very large numbersof violent
deaths,wave afterwave of war, epidemic,famineandpoliticalbloodletting.
Cumulatively,the impactof so muchtraumaandloss amountedto a national
disaster.But the effects of it have not yet been systematicallyconsidered.
One reasonfor the omissionmaylie in the natureof the materialitself. 'It is
in the natureof traumato elude knowledge',writesa leadingstudentof the
subject.'Massivetraumacannotbe graspedbecausethere areneitherwords
norcategoriesof thoughtadequateto its representation.'2
Suchperceptionsabout the natureof traumacome from psychoanalysis
andliterarytheoryratherthanfromconventionalsocialhistory.The bulkof
the evidence on which they are based has been drawn from work with
survivorsof the Holocaust. Interviews and case studies based on the
longer-termpsychoanalysisof individualshave found that many survivors
have lived for decades in the shadow of memoriesthey cannot or will not
exploreor know. But theirchildren,the verychildrenthey soughtto protect
by theirsilence, learnedto understandeven withoutwords. As one writer,
herself the child of Holocaust survivors,put it, 'denied the memory, [the
children] inherited only the wound'.3 Recurrent nightmares and un-
explainedanxieties, depressionand angerwere commonmanifestationsof

History Workshop Journal Issue 42 (? History Workshop Journal 1996

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2 HistoryWorkshopJournal

that wound, and also bulimia, anorexiaand an inabilityto build lasting


personalattachments.4Psychoanalyticresearchof thiskindsuggeststhatthe
Holocaustis not merelyhistorydespitethe fact that mostof the people who
still rememberit at firsthandare now in theirseventiesandeighties.
The Holocaustis a uniquehistoricalcase. But the typesof questionwhich
it has raised about traumaand memoryhave wide, if largelyunexplored,
significance.There have been other death camps, other catastrophes,and
large-scaletraumahas been common in the twentiethcentury.Do other
societies carry destructive, insufficientlyexplored memories?How long
does the potencyof suchmemoriessurvive?Whatis the meaningandrole of
commemoration,especiallyif it is held at a lag of ten, twenty, or even fifty
years? Historians know a good deal about the number of victims of
twentieth-centurydisasters,demographerscantracktheirlong-termechoes
in later generations.But there are other issues, equallyimportant,about
whichwe know almost nothing. How did people cope with mass bereave-
ment?Whatdid they rememberof it, andwhatis its sociallegacy?
Memory,in the Russiancase, is a complicatedmatter.In the firstplace,
manyof the worstdisastersof the Sovietera were officiallyignoredor even
deniedat the time. In otherinstances,the scaleof loss wasplayeddown, and
even in wartimesome typesof victimwentunmourned.If publicrecognition
and supportare importantelementsin overcomingpersonalgrief, we must
ask what impact these kinds of denial had upon the bereaved. How did
people deal with deaths they could not discuss?What stories did they tell
themselves about them? The denial of death, moreover, was not simply
imposedby the state. Whydidpeople colludein it, andhow, again,didthey
square their direct experience with the accounts which they read and
disseminated?
These questions are importantfor the historian,but they also have a
contemporaryresonance. The curtainwhich Khrushchevbrieflylifted in
1956 was torn down after 1988. Large-scalepolitical murderand mass
starvationwere againdiscussedin the formerSoviet Union, often with the
active participationof survivors. Writers, artists, archaeologists,film-
makers and even, eventually, professionalhistoriansparticipatedin the
uncoveringof suppressedmemories,the reckoningof numbers,the naming
of victims. But the public's fascinationwas short-lived. By 1990, and
increasingly thereafter, interest in the past began to give way to a
preoccupationwithpresentuncertainties.It was even arguedthattoo much
attentionwas being squanderedupon the past, that the presentand future
demandedeveryone'senergy,thatpastwounds,howeverjaggedlythey had
closed, were best left to heal by themselves.
Is this diagnosis correct? Should a society with recent experience of
disaster,war and, above all, fratricidalviolence, preservethe memoryor
allowit to die? The questionhauntsEasternandCentralEurope,freshfrom
theircollaborationtrials;it is crucialto the reconstructionof SouthAfrica,
immanentin the complex politics of Rwanda,Nigeria and Bosnia. In the

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Deathand Memoryin ModernRussia 3

Russiancase, controversyis fuelled by speculationabout what mighthave


happenedif the generationswiththe mostpainfulmemorieshadtakenthem
privatelyto thegrave.Butwasthiseverapossibility?Wouldnottheirsonsand
daughters,likethe Georgianheroineof TengizAbuladze'sfilm,Repentance,
have exhumedthe bodies and demandeda publichearing?
The firststeptowardsananswerto thesequestionshasalreadybeentaken,
althoughthe implicationsof muchof the researchhaveyet to be drawn.After
decadesof debate, and despite the problemsbequeathedby a Soviet state
benton denyingthe scaleof its losses, historiansareclose to agreementabout
the demographiccatastrophesof the Stalin era.5 Within this consensus,
naturally,there are still large areas of uncertainty.Historiansagree on
dividingthe periodinto three, at leastfromthe pointof view of excessdeath;
1914-21,the yearsof worldwar,revolution,civilwarandfamine;1926-39,a
period bounded by two censuses but characterizedby the upheavalsof
collectivizationandforcedindustrialization, widespreadfamine,and,finally,
politicalrepressionin the formof the purgesof 1937-8;and1939-45,a period
which encompassedthe invasionof Finlandand the Great PatrioticWar.
Assessmentsof the scaleof lossesat eachstage, however,varyconsiderably.
The problemis compoundedby controversiesover the 1897census(the only
one everconductedby the Tsaristregime)andthe impossibilityof accurately
assessingtheratesof fertility(andthus,of infantmortality)andof emigration.
Inthe broadestterms,it appearsthatbetweentwenty-threeandtwenty-six
millionpeople died prematurelyin whatwouldbecome the USSR between
1914 and 1922. Collectivization,the famine and the purges- the Stalinist
revolutionfromabove- resultedin aboutten millionfurtherexcessdeaths,of
which politicalexecutionsprobablyaccountedfor roughlyone and a half
million. Finally, the war years 1929-45saw in excess of twenty-sixmillion
prematuredeaths, some in combat,some relateddirectlyto war, but many
also productsof a continuingcampaignof state repression.
Figures of this scale defy attempts to picture the reality which they
catalogue.Even disastersfamiliarto West Europeansassumedincalculably
greaterproportionsin the East. The FirstWorldWarwas more costly, in
termsof humanlives,forthe RussiansthanfortheWesternEuropeanpowers
becauseof the largenumberof men theyfielded.It wasfollowed,moreover,
by a vicious civil war in which furthermillionsperished. Both wars were
accompaniedbymassivemovementsof population.As Lorimerputit in 1946,
'during the years 1915-23, the Russian people underwent the most
cataclysmicchanges since the Mongol invasion in the early thirteenth
century.'6
Such upheavalinevitablyinvolved high mortalityamong civilians.The
influenzaepidemicof 1918-19 affected Russiawith special force, and was
followed by similarlydevastatingepidemicsof cholera,typhusand spotted
typhus. Sanitaryprovisionin the cities had been rudimentarybefore the
war, but from 1918 crumblingbuildings, infected water and uncollected
garbageprovideda textbook setting for the spreadof disease. In Moscow

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alone, thousandsof deathswere recordedevery monthfrom 1918to 1921,


with the mainkillers- influenza,typhus,choleraand dysentery- following
seamlesslyin a parade which seemed to have no end.7 Scarcelya single
familycan have escapedsome directexperienceof prematuredeath in this
period, a patternthat would be repeatedseveraltimes in the next few dec-
ades.
The Civil War was followed almost immediatelyby a severe famine.
This was most destructivein southern Russia, and especially the Volga
region and Ukraine. Total mortalityin these regions is estimated at be-
tween one and a half and four million. The pictureis complicatedby in-
fanticide,whichwas not new, and also by cannibalism,whichhad not been
reportedon such a scale before. The authorsof a contemporarystudy of
the famine admitted,for example, that cannibalismin any form was vir-
tually unknownin 1891, when hungerhad been almost as severe.8But in
1921,possibly,accordingto the same source,becauseof the brutalizingef-
fects of the FirstWorldWar, cases where dead bodies were consumedby
survivors,even if graveyardshad to be robbed, ran to several thousand.
The murderand eatingof neighbours,and especiallyof children,although
less common,was also widelyreported.WithcarefulBolshevikrationality,
the authorsexplainedthat such behaviourwas a desperatelast resort, and
that the guilty seldom survivedto acquirea taste for humanflesh.9Rather
than makinga sensationout of these cases, readerswere told, they should
look for parallels with this behaviouramong animals, many species of
which, 'andespeciallyrabbits',consumetheiryoungat timesof food short-
age.10Whatthe survivorswere to makeof theirunspeakablememorieswas
not discussed.
The officialreponseto the 1921faminewas callous.11But Stalin'streat-
ment of its successorof 1932-3 set new standardsfor state-sanctionedbrut-
ality. Collectivizationin fact involvedtwo waves of excess mortality.The
first was associatedwith the deportationof the so-called kulaks. Precise
figuresabout death rates among the five or six million deportees are not
known, but extensivelosses, some from suicide, othersfromhunger,exile
and the effects of long journeysundertakenin unventilated,unheatedand
overcrowdedfreighttrucks,clearlyoccurred.12Two years later, however,
cameone of the most destructiveepisodesin Soviethistory,a faminewhich
broughthunger, disease and death to large areas of the Ukraine, North
Caucasus,Volga and steppe regions.Starvationbroughtepidemicdisease,
despairdrove manyto insanityand suicide. 'It is not uncommon,'ran one
report, 'to find villages with a black flag flyingat each end of the central
street, signifyingthat none of the populationare left as a result of star-
vationand flight.'13'People fed on [a famine]diet', rananotherreport,'get
swollen limbs and faces, whichmakesthem appearlike some caricatureof
human beings, then graduallyturn into living skeletons, and finallydrop
dead whereverthey stand or go. The dead bodies are held at the morgue
until they numberfifty or more, and then are buriedin mass graves. . ..

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Deathand Memoryin ModernRussia 5

The famine in the Soviet Ukrainein 1921was undoubtedlya terribleone,


but it appearslike child'splayin comparisonto the presentsituation.'14
Stalinundoubtedlyknewaboutthe 1933famine,althoughtherecanbe no
certaintyat this stage that he plannedit as a deliberateact of genocide.15
Throughoutthe months of bitterest hardship, for example, letters and
petitionsfromstarvingvillagers,punctuatedby an increasinglysympathetic
commentaryfromthe local secretpolice, pouredacrosshis desk."6Officials
in the region, too, and the statisticianswho processed their findingsat
regionaland nationallevel, also knew of the extent of the losses. Rumour
circulated widely outside the famine regions; market centres became
clearinghouses for tales of raggedmen and women droppingdead in the
street, and for darkerstories also about suicide, murderand cannibalism.
Even foreign journalistsand diplomats knew of the disaster, although
officialdenialscontinuedto hamperthe organizationof internationalfamine
relief. A relativelycautiousestimateof the total numberof excess deathsin
the four years of collectivizationwould be eight million. In the worst
affectedregionsmortalitywas as highas 65-70 per cent.17
The peasantsbore the bruntof sufferinganddeathin the 1930s,buturban
dwellers were not entirely spared. Rapid industrializationentailed both
forced and voluntary population movements, for example to the new
industrialcentre of Magnitogorskin the Urals. Harsh conditionson the
steppein 1931broughtdeaththatwinterto workerswhoseexperienceof the
firstsocialistcity involved living in tents until rudimentarybrickbuildings
could be throwntogether.Industrialaccidents,againstwhichfew measures
were taken at this so-called heroic stage, were also a source of increased
fatality. 8
The greatestkillerin the later 1930s, however, was the judicialsystem.
The purgesof 1937-8 claimed approximatelyone and a half million adult
lives, and the repressiveprocesscontinuedinto the early 1950s.Typically,
individualswho were purged simply disappeared.Although recent testi-
monies, for examplefrom Belarus,speak of people kept awakeat nightby
the sound of rifle or revolverfire, most of the purge killingstook place in
secret. Purge victims were shot in the back of the neck, a method of
executionwhichsparedthe executionerfromeye contactwithhistargetand,
apparently,minimizedthe postmortemspillingof blood. A desire to deny
even the basichumanityof allegedcriminalswas reflectedin theirdepiction
in the press as spiders, rats, pigs, vultures, dogs, hyenas. Their human
bodies, several million of them over the whole Soviet period, simply
disappeared.Of the remainingvictimsof Stalinism,manydied in complete
isolationfromsociety, starvingor perishingfromcold in the labourcampsof
the far northand east.
By 1939, then, the Soviet Union had alreadysustainedproportionately
moreexcessdeathsthananyotherindustrializingEuropeansociety.But the
greatestdisasterof all was yet to come. Debate about the scale of losses in
the Great PatrioticWar continues. Initially,the officialnumberof deaths

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was given as seven million, thoughit was widely suspectedthat this was a
grossunderestimate.Khrushchevlaterinflatedthe figureto twentymillion,
the statistic, grim enough, which most of the older textbooks give as an
indication of the disproportionatelyhigh price the Soviets paid for the
collectivevictoryover fascism.In fact, however, the total appearsto have
been at least as high as twenty-eightmillion, while some currentRussian
estimatesinflatethe losses to thirty-sevenor even fortymillion.19
How did people cope with loss on this scale? What was its impact?In
othersocietiesa naturalresponsewouldhavebeen to turnto the traditional
comfortsof religionand ritual,publicor private.But here again,the Soviet
case was exceptional.The violence of the Stalinera was compoundedby a
parallel and simultaneousassault upon religious practices of all kinds,
includingthose surroundingdeath. The impactof this attackon Russian
mentalities can be understood only by considering the importance of
traditionin the years before Stalinism.Even for a pre-industrialsociety,
Russiawasrichlyendowedwithsuperstition,customandritualwhenit came
to the treatmentof deathandbereavement.20 Beliefs aboutthe relationship
between the body and the soul, and even aboutthe conditionof the corpse
itself, incorporatedpre-Christianinfluences, accretionsfrom traditional
folkloreand adaptedorthodoxideasandlanguage.Superstitionswhichhad
persistedforcenturieswerewidelyheld, affectingpracticesacrossEuropean
Russia. The rapidviolationof these wouldhave been shockingon its own.
But their more or less enforced abandonmentat a time of widespread
violencecompoundeda majorsocialcatastrophe.
In the light of what was about to happen, three principalsets of issues
stand out as particularlyimportant.First, the body itself was treatedwith
carefulreverence- washed, dressedin special garments,laid in its coffin
withan assortmentof possessionsandtokensto ease its passageto the 'other
wide'. Second, the place of burial acquired a lasting importance.The
holdingof ritualmealsat the graveside,regularvisitsto the plot, the tending
and decorationof graves- these are traditionswhich still survive.Family
members might converse with the deceased by the grave; sometimes
messageswere sent in the keepingof the recentlydead for those who had
gone long before. A sense of continuitywas preservedat the burialsite.
Cremation,whichthe Bolsheviksattemptedto reintroducein the 1920s,was
entirely alien to Russianfuneraryculture.The practicehad disappeared,
indeed, more or less at the sametime as Christianityarrivedin Kiev.
Fear of and respectfor deathwere manifestedthroughghoststoriesand
the belief thatpotentiallyvengefulspiritsmustbe appeased.The purposeof
manyof the more elaborateaspectsof funeraryritualwas to circumventthe
possibility of hauntingor other revenge. At the moment of death, for
example,doorswerelockedanda windowopenedto allowthe spiritto leave
by an unfamiliarroute, thus makingits returnto the house moredifficult.2'
The soap with which the corpse had been washed was buried in an
uncultivatedcornerof the yard,andthe waterdisposedof outsidethe house.

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Deathand Memoryin ModernRussia 7

Body and spirit were hardly separate - violations of a corpse could result in
an angry haunting.22 Whether individuals fully believed in these super-
stitions is at one level unimportant; their persistence indicates that they were
at least effective as strategies for allaying the collective anxiety about death
in a high-mortality world.
How did the Bolsheviks deal with death? Their ideology was officially
atheist. Unease about death, however, is universal. The questions of ritual
and a new Soviet language of death were raised within hours of the seizure of
power. One of the new government's first tasks was to bury the 238 heroes
who had died in the struggle for Moscow. A 'communist', atheist, funeral
ceremony had rapidly to be improvized. Quick to see the potential as well as
the challenge of the occasion, its organizers.turned it into one of the earliest
full-scale demonstrations in support of the revolution. Red Square, whch
only four years before had seen celebrations for three hundred years of the
Romanov dynasty, now hosted its first mass rally for the new regime.23
Every factory, office, and theatre in the city was closed for the occasion.
Open coffins were carried through the city to their burial place in the
Kremlin wall. The cortege was followed by a battalion of the Red Guard, its
slow progress accompanied by the ritual (and traditional) wailing of women.
Red banners fluttered from the Kremlin's battlements, their message
confirming that the deaths marked the birth of a new life, that of the
workers' and peasants' republic. The choice of ceremony, even the choice of
music and the presence of the keening women, combined the old and
familiar with elements of Communist state theatre. Open coffins, flowers,
the notion that death is necessary for the creation of new life - these were
traditional aspects of Russian funerary culture. The addition of military
guards and political slogans, neatly replacing the trappings of traditional
religion, was intended at this stage to honour the fact that the 'heroes' had
died fighting. But military ritual, and the presence of soldiers in uniform,
would become a staple of Communist obsequies thereafter, reinforcing the
idea that the new state was the product of constant struggle and sacrifice.
The hero's funeral, repeated several times in the next three years,24
would reach its high point in the pubilc obsequies for Lenin in 1924. In its
seventh year, the new regime had yet to perfect the atheist funeral; Lenin
deserved the deepest solemnities, but Communism, with its simple slogans
and direct messages of equality and consumption, could provide little that
did not smack of bathos. The choice of music, for example, was problematic.
The heroes of 1917 were buried to the strains of Internationale- less than two
weeks after the Revolution little else seemed appropriate. But the
commission which met to organize the ceremony for Lenin's interment
included men whose tastes had been formed in western Europe. They
reached instinctively for the requiem masses of Verdi and Mozart, to say
nothing of the heroic romanticism of Wagner's Gotterdammerung. Memo-
randa flew from the commission to the office of Lunacharskii, Commissar
for Education. It was the latter who discarded all the religious music,

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rejectedWagneron aestheticgrounds,andoptedfor ChopinandBeethoven


interleaved with frequent repeats of the Internationale.25
Lenin's funeral and the embalmingof his corpse raise questionswhich
reach beyond the scope of this paper. Here it is enough to note that it
provided the occasion for the most spectacular public ritual of the
Revolution'sfirst decade, and indeed possibly also of the entire pre-war
period. Its cost, at a time of economicstringency,was considerable.26 Red
Squareitself was refurbished,numeroussmall buildings,and even a tram
line, were removed,and a temporarymausoleumconstructed.The military
demonstrationwhichaccompaniedthe ceremonywas rigorousto the point
of barbarism-162 soldierssufferedfrostbitestandingto attentionalongthe
route of the cortege.27But the officialobject was achieved.Lenin'sfuneral
was treatedas a momentto renewone's allegianceto the new regime;from
the prematuredeath of the hero would flow new life in the form of a new
worldorder.The leader'sbody, like thatof a pre-revolutionary saint,would
not corrupt. Preserved in his perspex coffin, moreover, the dead hero
watched- albeitimpotently- overthe regimehe hadcreated.His death,like
those of other heroes, glorified the collective enterprise of building
socialism.Such a sense of purposeassuagedthe grief which, bereft of any
sense of a compensatoryafterlife,could otherwiseonly mourn, and even
seek to avenge, the senselessobliterationof life.
If Bolshevism appropriatedsome of the symbolism and ritual of
pre-revolutionaryRussiafor its leaders,however,in practicethe deathsof
commonpeople weretreatedwithless reverence.A regimewhichoriginally
attempted to maintainthe ProvisionalGovernment'sban on the death
penalty for both civilianand militaryoffences soon found itself presiding
over summaryexecutionsrunningat scoresor even hundredsa day.28Eye
witnessesrecalledpiles of bodieslitteringthe streetsof provincialcities, the
nightlyecho of riflefire. As Leninput it, 'no revolutionarygovernmentcan
do withoutthe deathpenalty,andthe essenceof the questionis only against
whatclass will the weaponof the deathpenaltybe directed.'29Some of the
killings were intended to have a deterrenteffect. In 1922, for example,
Lenincalledfor the religiousprotestersof the cityof Shuato be punished'so
brutallythat they will rememberit for decadesto come.'30The firstofficial
victim of the death penalty administeredby Soviet justice was Aleksei
Shchastny,Admiralof the Balticfleet, executedfor treasonin June1918.31
The bulk of the politicalkillingsof the earlySoviet periodreceivedlittle
publicity, however, and did not involve prominentfigures or elaborate
trials. Public, theatrical, execution was not a staple of a regime which
preferredto despatchits manyenemies with a swift bullet ratherthan risk
the spectacle - and possible focus for revolt - of an overcrowdedpublic
gallows.32The scale of the politicalkillingswas nearlyalwaysdownplayed.
The dictatorshipof the proletariatcouldbe baptisedlightlywiththe bloodof
martyrs, but there was nothing to be gained from advertisingits total
immersionin thatof its realandimaginedopponents.Whenthe civilwarwas

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Deathand Memoryin ModernRussia 9

commemoratedin the 1920s, the military metaphors and language of


emergencyand heroismwere retained, but the enemy was only sketchily
described.Bodies- humanbodies- were not to be seen litteringthe pathof
socialist construction.The official images were carefully censored. Ex-
combatantsof the Civil War were known to be rackedby nightmaresof
slaughterand mutilation,their nerves shattered,their bodies incapableof
work.33But while the medical and Party journals discussedthe problem
froma clinicalpointof view, scantpublicacknowledgementwasmadeof the
scenes whichhad driventhemto sucha pass.
The Civil War was an extreme crisis; the reverent disposalof corpses
couldhardlyhave been a highpriority.But even behindthe lines, long-held
burialcustomswere underpressure.The attackon organizedreligionwhich
followed the Revolutionwas not solely aimed at the institutionalpowerof
the priesthood.Popularreligion,customandfolkloreall posed an ideologi-
cal challenge. Funerals provided ideal opportunitiesfor the parade of
superstition,the collective indulgenceof religious beliefs and for group
speculation about the benefits or costs of the new political order. The
traditionalfuneral,and the customaryrites of memorialafterEaster, were
objectsof particularconcernto militantatheistsin the BolshevikParty;but
theywerealsothe leastsusceptibleof religiousritualsto violentsuppression.
As late as the 1960s, by which time the majorityof other rites of passage
(such as marriageand the naming of children) had acquiredan almost
universally accepted secular ritual, burial remained a predominantly
religiousaffair.34
A numberof argumentswere used in the attackon traditionalpractices.
The most persuasive, arguably, was based on considerationsof public
health. It was no coincidencethat the firstSoviet decree on cemeterieswas
passed at the height of the typhusepidemicof 1918-19.35Cemeteriesnear
the centres of increasinglyovercrowdedcities posed a threat to ground
water; excessively shallow graves - often the result of the successive
intermentof several bodies in the same plot - could even result in the
exposureof bones and rottinghumanremains.Meanwhile,the Bolshevik
policy of closing churchesleft traditionalcemeteriesuntendedand raised
questionsaboutthe futureuse of the space. The proposedsolutionto these
problems,neatly includingan anti-religiouselement, was to introducethe
practiceof secular,scientificcremation.36
The problem here, as in any other instancewhere a group of officials
attemptedto overturnancientpracticesin favourof new 'scientific'ones,
was partlythat the innovationlacked dignity. The officialinstructionsfor
cremationscalled for 'order' in the crematorium,'complete silence, no
smoking, shouting, or spitting on the floor.' A list of documents was
requiredbefore cremationcould take place; ashes, similarly,could not be
collectedwithoutthe appropriateform. 'Ashescannotbe keptin the house',
concludedthe directive,'buteveryotherwayof dispersingthem- scattering
them in the mountains,droppingthem from aeroplanes,keeping them in

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10 HistoryWorkshopJournal

institutesand museums- is permitted.They mayonly be takenabroadwith


the appropriatedocumentation.'37 Thisbrutalismwas not the mainproblem
withcrematoria,however.Farmoreimportantwasthe factthatthe physical
destructionof the corpserepresenteda violationof traditionalpractices.At
a stroke, accustomed rituals involving the scatteringof earth, and the
preservationof images of the deceased by the gravesidewould be swept
away. Traditionally,the spiritof the dead person did not leave his or her
relativesat once; the commemorativeserviceswhichwere held forty days
and a year after death were survivalsfrom an older traditionof appeasing
and even exorcizing the earth-bound spirits of the dead. Cremation
representedthe prematureannihilationof humanremains,anddeprivedthe
survivorsof the possibilityof revisitingthe gravewiththe traditionalgiftsof
food requiredto forestallmisfortune.
The introductionof cremationhad, therefore, to be backed up by the
suppression of cemeteries. Here again, careful regulationsset out the
procedureby whichgraveornamentsandlead couldbe removedandturned
over to governmentuse. A watchon suchcemeterieswasneededto prevent
hasty (and thus unhygienic)burialsfrom taking place even after official
closure.The task fell to the secretpolice, who also monitoredthe activities
of wanderingpriests and sectariangroups.38Proceduresand regulations
were prescribedto prevent unnecessaryviolence and the abuse of local
believers, but in fact over-zealousofficialscould expect little in the way of
reproofif they exceeded their tasks. Cases of so-calledproizvol, arbitrari-
ness, whichcould includethe banningof prayersfor the dyingandreligious
funerals,were seldominvestigated.39 The priorityat this stagewas to break
the universalgrip of religion. Crematoria,whichnever supersededgrave-
yards in the popularmind, were publicizedas the socialist alternativeto
burial. The contrastbetween the meagreritualthere provided,the rapid
disposalof physicalremains,andthe traditionalpompsurroundingLenin's
corpsecould hardlyhave been greater.
Since the fall of Communismanthropologistsin Moscowhave begun to
investigatewhatremainsof funeraryculture.One of theirgoals has been to
separatewhat is Russian from what is Soviet in the residuesof tradition
about which they write. It is the Russian, insofar as it can be identified,
whichis currentlymodish. Revivalsof old liturgyand customhave already
occurred,and more mighttake place were it not for the prohibitivelyhigh
price of funerals and even of grave plots.40But revival would be the
operativeword. Whilesome traditionalrites, includingthe vigilby the open
coffin, the inclusionof money and food or flowerswith the corpse, and,
later, the memorial vigils, are still observed, most have changed their
meaningsincethe 1920s.Somepracticeshavebeen adaptedin strangeways.
Accordingto tradition,for example,the deadpersonwouldbe buriedwitha
prayerbetweenhis or herhandsto ease theiradmissionto heaven.Sincethe
1930s,however,thishas been replacedby a passport,identitycardor similar
document, and is known, only partly mockingly, as the dead person's
papers.41

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Death and Memory in Modern Russia 11

Even for those who died peacefully, then, Soviet power brought changes,
many of which made mourning more difficult for those who survived. For
the families of those who died violently, and for the victims of famine, the
processes of loss and mourning were disrupted beyond recognition. Written
records from the famine regions, for example, stress the appalling casual-
ness and haste of disposal. Bodies were piled up on carts and in morgues and
buried by the score - if there was anyone available to bury them - in
communal pits. Sometimes the dying were loaded on to the mortuary carts
with the dead to save a second tour of the village. Memoirs describe the
looting of bodies, thefts of clothing, and even, notably in the peculiar crisis
of the siege of Leningrad, the butchering of human flesh, which at one point
took place in the yard of a local hospital. In a culture where the dressing of
corpses played so large a part, one memoir of looting is particularly telling.
'No-one ventures to dress the dead family members in any clothes,' a
Ukrainian noted, 'as the next day they would be found at the morgue naked,
stripped of everything by unknown criminals.'42
Serious though it was, however, the violation of funerary rituals was only
the first of a series of disruptions guaranteed to compound the sorrows of the
bereaved. Individual loss can be accommodated by most societies, but
where collective trauma - and thus, social memory - is concerned, a further
stage in recovery involves remembrance, the recognition and acknow-
ledgement of death, the conferring of a certain status on the bereaved, the
construction of dignified narratives to explain the necessity and value of the
losses.43 Because the conferring of special status on the dead is linked with
national priorities and official definitions of identity, some victims of
catastrophe remain at least partially invisible. The fallen of 1920s civil war
Ireland might be an example here, or slaves who perished without record in
the days before Civil Rights. Where Soviet Russia differed from most other
cases, however, was that many memories did not merely rot but were
actively suppressed. Historical, and even personal records, were distorted to
deny their validity.
Even war deaths were recorded selectively. While the so-called Great
Patriotic War, the pivotal moment in Soviet military history, was elaborately
commemorated, First World War deaths tended to be forgotten. The
Briatsk cemetery of First World War soldiers has disappeared altogether."
There are some comparisons to be made here with the commemoration of
fallen mercenaries in Europe's early modern wars - as George Mosse points
out,45 elaborate commemorationin Western Europe only began with
citizens' militias and the idea of collective sacrifice. The First World War, as
far as the Bolsheviks were concerned, was an old regime imperialist struggle
- and perhaps their silence about it reflects their political indifferent to it as a
founding myth. More recently, official reticence about the costs and wisdom
of the Afghan war was reflected in the secrecy with which fallen soldiers
were buried, often without reference to the cause of their deaths, and often,
too, in graves deliberately separated from each other to distract public
attention from the scale of the losses.46Mass death, even in the service of the

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12 History Workshop Journal

state, need not be commemorated.The methods by which the teenage


victimsof the Soviet Afghancampaignwere buriedand officiallyforgotten
had a long history.
The Stalinistsystemwas adeptat destroyingthe tools of publicmemory.
Even where data were carefullypreservedin secret sections of the state
archives,the mysterysurroundingthem encouragedpeople to think that
they had been destroyed.But the statewas not the only actorin the process
of memorydestruction.In many cases the circumstanceswere such as to
encourageindividualsto collaborateactivelyin the suppressionof docu-
ments and other items. The example of the 1933 famine illustratesthis
process at work. Reportsfrom the area suggestedthat althoughfood was
criticallyscarce everywhereand prices high, starvationitself was uneven.
Some villages were virtuallywiped out while others, though suffering,
survived.
At the same time, refugeesfrom famine areas were to be found at rail
headsacrossSouthernRussiaandthe Ukraine.Underthese circumstances,
the denial of mass death - the very word starvationwas bannedin 1932-
cannothave convincedmanypeople. But therewas no publicoutcryagainst
this blatantofficialdenial. Partof the reasonfor the silencewas the habitof
collusionwhichfifteenyearsof Sovietpowerhad begunto instil. Organised
politicaloppositionwas no trivialcrimeby 1933. Speakingout, moreover,
would bring few rewards in a political system where the possibility of
alternativeformsof government,or even of findingdifferentpersonnel,had
dwindledto nothing. It was on this basisthat officiallies aboutthe famine
paid off. The suppressionof mortalitydata four years later, in the 1937
census, was effectedwithoutprotest.47
Repression,however,or the threatof it, was not the only reasonfor the
people'ssilence. Forthose who hadsufferedmostdirectly,silencemayhave
been preferableto repeatinga story whichcould not publiclybe acknow-
ledged.Becausetherewasno chanceof healingrecognition,the rehearsalof
the experiencewouldhavebroughtonlyfurthersuffering,materialas well as
psychological.Many had fled the countryside,moreover,to avoid further
harm.Theirguilt, as survivors,wouldhavebeen reinforcedby theirdesireto
forget in order to begin a new life. Finally, untold numbersbenefitted
directlyfrom the famine. Some appropriatedland or chattels,some, more
grimly, were known to have looted the dead. Those who resettled
abandonedvillages, howeverinnocently,wouldalso have had good reason
to be silent aboutthe recentpast.48For all these reasons,the suppressionof
memorywas not simplyan act of violenceperpetratedby the state.
The same kindsof observationcouldbe madeaboutthe purges.Formost
relatives of the arrested, it was actively dangerousto preserve material
evidence of the existenceof repressedenemies of the people. The workof
destructionbeganwith the individual.Photographswouldbe destroyed,or
the facesof the deceasedmutilatedanderased.Manuscriptswereburned,as
were letters, keepsakesand diaries.These acts, whichtook some time and

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Deathand Memoryin ModernRussia 13

wouldhaveforceda certainamountof reflectionon the partof the mourner,


mightbe portrayedas a kindof anti-commemoration, a processwhichaided
mourningin its early stages. But they were also, crucially,violations of
memory.To make mattersworse, the widowsor childrenof purgevictims
might well be obliged to denounce their disgracedrelative, and this not
once, but repeatedlyin everythingthey did for the rest of their lives. None
could have predicted,as they embarkedon this lifetime of denial, that its
end wouldbe the springtimeof glasnostandthe fall of Communismitself.
Ostensibly,the war was a differentstory. Publiccommemorationof the
Great PatrioticWar was ubiquitousin the Soviet Union. It took every
accustomedform, includingsolemnceremonialas well as more permanent
memorialssuch as monuments,parks, and eternal flames. What is more
important,however,is that these formsof commemorationwere selective,
and, as such, exclusive. The unknownsoldier, in the USSR as elsewhere,
was a young, usually unmarriedman, his life before him, strong and
essentiallyinnocent. By focusingon this young man, official commemor-
ation excluded the non-standardsoldier, the older man, the woman, the
victimof disease, the desertershot by his own side. Moreover,commemor-
ationsof the unknownsoldiertook no cognisanceof the hugeloss behindthe
lines, the deaths of elderly and very young people, the continuing
haemorrhagebroughtabout by police repression,the victimsof epidemic
diseaseandcold.
In this way, war mourningwas specific, it required a channellingor
sublimationof other griefs. And if wartimelosses could be sublimatedinto.
the public commemorationof the unknownsoldier, so, indirectly,could
those which had preceded the war itself. It might be suggested - and
preliminaryinterviews held in Russia in 1995 tend to confirm the sug-
gestion49- thatthe collectivenationalgrievingwhichtook placetwicea year
in the Soviet Union from 1944onwardswas not directedsolely at its stated
object. It was common for people to talk of more general 'sorrows'or
'disasters'and 'sacrifices'as they discussedthe warwithfriendsandveterans
in the parksand squaresof Moscowand St Petersburg.The war, arguably,
provideda conduitfor griefswhichhad few otheroutlets.50
The same mightalso be said of the elaboratepublicmourningfor Lenin
andStalin.To suggestthatthisis not to denythe depthof genuinefeelingon
both occasions.Witnessesspeak of havingfelt completelylost when Stalin
died, andthe crushof mourners- withattendantfatalities- in severalmajor
cities was a testimonyto real grief. But both types of commemoration- for
the war dead and for the revolutionaryheroes - could changein meaning
with a suddennessthat suggests more complex motives than simple grief
were at work. Stalin was removed from the pantheon relativelyearly, in
1958,and any regretfor him, outside Georgia, at least, becamea semi-licit
affair.But Lenin, or rather,the remainsof his body and the mausoleumin
which it lay, continuedto provide a focus for the renewalof patrioticand
socialistsentiments.In the Soviet case these sentiments- patriotismand a

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14 History Workshop Journal

sense of nationalmission- have been so closely linkedwith sharedtrauma


and mourningthat personalvisits to the mausoleumwere conductedwith
the solemnity reserved in some cultures for the ancestralshrine.5"The
irony, perhaps,is that for manyof the mourners,their own immediatean-
cestorslay in unmarkedgraves,secretvictimsof the very systemtheirchil-
dren soughtto honour.
The point is underscoredby the fact that recently both Lenin and the
war veterans have been supplanted. Debate continues to rage about
Lenin'scorpse, with supportfor those who favourits quiet burialor crem-
ation broadlyshadowingthe popularityof the liberal reform movement.
Meanwhile, the fiftieth anniversaryof the Russian victory in Europe in
May 1995was surprisinglylow key.52Even older people regardedthe vet-
erans with suspicion- why had they survivedwhile others perished,why
should they have benefittedfrom fifty years of queue jumpingand special
rations?The warno longerexercisesthe powerand fascinationit once did,
and certainlyprovidesless of the patrioticfocus whicheven ten years ago
was so strikinga featureof Soviet life.
Does this mean, to turnto the finalquestion,that the workof mourning
for the 1920s and 1930sis now complete?Or, as many youngerRussians
would have it, is not the task now to move on, to thinkof the presentand
the problematicfuture? The argumentwas made frequentlyin the late
1980s, at the height of the rehabilitationcampaigns.On one hand, the
Memorialsocietyworkedto recoveras muchinformationas possibleabout
every personwho had disappearedduringthe Soviet period. As a sideline,
it also undertookthe constructionof physicalmonumentsto the repressed,
the most famous of which now occupies a centralposition in Lyubyanka
Square. On the other, a vocal section of the population, includingrep-
resentativesof the older generation,arguedthat the past was best buried
with the dead, that the opening of old woundscould only cause pain and
divertattentionawayfrompresenttasks.
Who is right?The question,obviously,has no absoluteanswer.One can
look to the experience of post-warGermanyand Eastern Europe since
1989 to drawcomparisons,but each case has a numberof specialfeatures
which make generalizationdifficult.What is clear from EasternEurope,
includingthe Czech republicand the formerEast Germany,is that witch
hunts, the search for collaborators,are dangerousand partiallycounter-
productiveaffairs.53In the case of post-SovietRussia, furthermore,vir-
tuallyevery livingcitizenover the age of forty, andmanywho are younger,
bears some responsibilityfor collusion, however passive and unwilling.
The boundarybetween victimsand perpetratorsis too fluid to be certain
about the criteriafor innocence.
But witchhuntsand mourningare separateprocesses.Wheremourning
is concerned, Russia may have somethingto learn from post-war Ger-
many. The problem there, as in Russia, was the question of collusion.
Even for Holocaustsurvivors,guiltanduncomfortablememoriesof missed

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Deathand Memoryin ModernRussia 15

opportunities made commemoration problematic. But for the mass of the


German population, even those who were not active Nazis, overwhelming
guilt, together with unvoiced fears about collaboration and responsibility,
made the Holocaust and the excesses of Nazi domestic policy into almost
taboo subjects outside the prescribed curriculumof the schoolroom until well
into the 1960s.54 Psychologists working with German civilians and with
former Nazis have noted the unwillingness of individuals to discuss their
personal role in past events, an unwillingness often only breached with the
approach of their own deaths.55Here, as in Stalin's Russia, censorship about
sensitive matters was not merely imposed from above.
Looking now to present-day Russia, it is important to bear in mind that
similar patterns of avoidance were observed among representatives of the
second and even third generations. The psychoanalytic data on Holocaust
survivors and their children may well apply as keenly to their Russian
counterparts. We have noted that the pathways through which secrets or
deliberate silence can emerge include depression and other psychological
disabilities such as anxiety. More serious are the enhanced rates of suicide
among the second and third generations, observable now in Germany and
also, arguably, in Russia, where male suicide rates have increased rapidly in
the past five years.56The people affected come from generations who knew
little or nothing of large-scale suffering at first hand, but whose lives were
marked by the silences and undiscussed distinctiveness of their parents. In
this, as in other ways, the comparison with Germany is not a question,
Nolte-style, of reducing the magnitude of either disaster by relativizing
both.57We should be aware of applying the findings of one group to another,
observing all the time that the conditions each experienced were unique, the
historical, social and cultural settings very different. But if the argument
about trauma has validity for one catastrophe, it is at least possible that it
applies to others. For contemporary Russia, the consequences, if it does, are
profound.
Some of these consequences are immediately apparent. In the first place,
Russian attitudes to death and to the value of life have probably been affected,
in the medium term, by repeated exposure to unmourned, unvalued death.
What others have described as the brutalization of society may have some
applicability to Russia, though distinctions need to be made between those
directly exposed to violence and those who experienced it at second hand or as
children. Secondly, faith in the state as the provider of care and advice on
matters relating to health, hygiene, life and death is likely to have taken a
long-term beating. At every turn this century, ordinary people have looked to
each other, to their friends, for the support and even the basic information
which the state denied them. The consequences for any government
interested in combatting smoking, alcohol abuse and even poor driving are
obvious. But finally, and more controversially, it may be that there is, in the
end, no avoiding the painful task of witnessing, of reliving, in diminished
form, the traumas of Stalinism if their consequences are ever to be overcome.

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16 History Workshop Journal

The refusalof manyyoungRussiansto discussthe pastnow thatthe basic


informationhas been publishedis understandable.They protestthat they
have heardit all before. The urgentquestionsnow concernthe future,ma-
terial insecurity, legality, democracyand the state. What some psycho-
therapistsmight see as a predictablepatternof avoidanceis also a healthy
preoccupationwith the problemsof life. It is possiblethat the deathof the
Stalingeneration,the loss of the last warveteran,will close the livingchap-
ter, leaving only the historicalresidue, materialfor later publicistsrather
thanthe stuffof vividsocialdistress.Therearequestionswhichremainto be
investigated.The psychoanalyticaldata on traumaare uncomfortableand
intrusive,and it is likely that they will remainas marginalto the historical
debates about Stalinismas they have to the analysisof Nazism.58But we
should think hard about their implications.A good deal has been written
aboutStalinand his crimes,aboutthe evil empireandits collapse.But talk-
ing, as such, as one writerhas noted, 'is not healing.Languagecan makeus
forget,repress,hide, wound.'59In the Sovietcase, as withHitler'sGermany,
it can also routinize,create distance,trivialize,turn traumainto the hum-
drum.Stalinism,like Nazism,can be boundandtamedinto a textbookcase
of dictatorship,totalitarianism,failed utopia. However sensational,it be-
comespasthistory.The problemforthe people who livedthroughit, andfor
theirchildren,is the possibilitythatit will not alwaysremainso.

NOTES

1 Earlierversionsof this essay were presentedat the HarryFrankGuggenheimFoun-


dation'sColloquiumon War, Victimhoodand Remembrancein PembrokeCollege, Cam-
bridge,in July1995andat BristolUniversity'sCriticalTheorySeminarin March1996.1would
like to thankthe organizersandall the participantsfor theircomments.Specialthanks,in ad-
dition,aredue to Dori Laub,EmmaRothschild,EmmanuelSivanandJayWinter.
2 Dori Laub and Nanette C. Auerhahn,'Knowingand not knowingmassivepsychic
trauma: forms of traumatic memory', International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 74, 1993,
p.301.
3 NadineFresco,'LaDiasporades Cendres',NouvelleRevuede Psychoanalyse,24, 1981,
pp.205-220.
4 Fresco, p. 217. See also Dori Lauband ShoshanaFelman(eds), Testimony:Crisesof
Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History, New York, 1992, and Barbara Hei-
mannsberg and Christoph J. Schmidt, The Collective Silence: German Identityand the Legacy of
Shame,SanFrancisco,1993.
5 The most completeof the currentsurveysis Alain Blum, Naitre,Vivreet Mouriren
URSS,1917-1991,Paris,1994.For a surveyof the currentstateof the debateaboutnumbers,
see R. W. Davies, MarkHarrisonandS. G. Wheatcroft,TheEconomicTransformation of the
Soviet Union, 1913-1945, Cambridge, 1994.
6 Cited in Davies et al., The Economic Transformationof the Soviet Union p. 60.
7 Recordsof the deathrate, week by week, are kept in the StateArchiveof the Russian
Federation(hereafterreferredto by its acronym,GARF), fond 482, opis 4, delo 31 (Health
Departmentof the MoscowSoviet).
8 L. A. andL. M. Vasilevskii,Knigao golode,Petrograd,1922.
9 Vasilevskii,Knigao golodepp. 175-8.
10 Vasilevskii,Knigao golodep. 182.
11 The Committeefor dealingwiththe effectsof the famine(Pomgol)wasset uponly after

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Death and Memory in Modern Russia 17

heateddebatewithinthe Partyleadership.Amongthe reasonscited by the organizerswas a


desireto avoidthe exploitationof the crisisby 'enemies'andemigreoppositionleaderssuchas
MiliukovandChernov.The secretletteron thismatteris amongthe CentralCommitteepapers
heldat the RossiiskiiTsentrKhraneniyai IzucheniyaDokumentovNoveisheiIstorii(hereafter
referredto by its acronym,RTsKhIDNI),fond 17, opis 84, delo 178.
12 See Davies et al., The EconomicTransformation of the Soviet Union, pp. 67-70 for a
discussionof the currentliterature.
13 Despatch from EdwardCoote to Sir John Simon, 26 August 1933. Cited in Marco
Carynnyk,LubomyrY. Luciukand Bohdan S. Kordan(eds), The ForeignOfficeand the
Famine, BritishDocumentson the Ukraineand the Great Famineof 1932-33, Kingston,
Ontario,1988(hereafterForeignOffice),p. 290.
14 Submissionfromthe UkrainianNationalCouncilin Canada,Winnipeg,September15
1933,ForeignOffice,p. 341.
15 The case forgenocideis mosteloquentlymadeby RobertConquest,Harvestof Sorrow,
London,1988.
16 The documentshave been collectedas Kolektivizatsiya i golod na ukraini1929-1933,
zbirnikdokumentivi materialiv,Kiev, 1992.
17 Figuresdrawnfromdata held in the RussianState Archiveof the Economy(RGAE),
fond 1562, opis 329, delo 107 (reportto the CentralState StatisticalAdministrationon the
calculationof lossesin 1932-3).
18 See, in particular,Stephen Kotkin, MagneticMountain:Stalinismas a Civilisation,
BerkeleyandLos Angeles, 1995.
19 The highestserious figurehas been given by V. I. Kozlov (IstoriyaSSSR, 2, 1989,
p. 133), who calculatedthat the populationdeficit in 1945was between 45 and 48 million,
suggestingthatapproximately 38 millionexcessdeathsoccurredbetween1939and1945.Other
Russiancalculationsareratherlower,andcorrespondmorecloselyto the estimatesof western
demographerssuch as Alain Blum. E. Andreev,L. Darskiiand T. Khar'kova,for example,
suggesta totalof 26 million.'Otsenkalyudskikhpoter'v periodvelikoiotechestvennoivoiny',
Vestnikstatistiki,10 1990.
20 See G. A. Nosova, 'Traditsionnyiobryadyrusskikh:krestiny,pokhoronny,pominki',
Rossiiskiietnograf,6, 1993,p. 5.
21 Details from D. K. Zelenin, Vostochnoslavyanskaya etnografiya,Moscow, 1926;
reprinted1991.
22 Elaborateghost-ritualssurvivedin ruralSiberiainto the twentiethcentury.See M. M.
Gromyko,Dokhristyanskie verovaniyav bytusibirskikhkrest'yan XVIII-XIXvv., Moscow,
1967.
23 My descriptionof the funeralis based on accountsreproducedin A. Abramov, U
kremlevskoisteny,Moscow,1984.
24 Notably at the funerals of the assassinatedBolshevik, Zagorskii, and of Ya. M.
Sverdlov,the firstgeneralsecretaryof the Party.
25 Thepapersrelatingto Lenin'sfuneralarein the Leninfondat RTsKhIDNI,fond16opis
1 delo 105.
26 For a lavish accountof the buildingof the Lenin mausoleum,see N. N. Stoyanov,
Arkhitektura mavzoleyaLenina,Moscow,1950.
27 RTsKhIDNI,fond 16, opis 1, delo 91.
28 The death penalty was abolished after the FebruaryRevolution. It was formally
reinstatedin September1918,buthadin practicebeenrevivedfromas earlyas March.See Ger
P. van den Berg, 'TheSovietUnion andthe Death Penalty',SovietStudies,35:2, April 1983,
p. 155.
29 Polnoesobraniesochinenii,fifthedn, vol. 39, pp. 183-4.
30 On thisremark,andthe literatureaboutit, see vandenBerg, 'TheSovietUnionandthe
DeathPenalty',pp. 156and168.
31 Vanden Berg, 'TheSovietUnionandthe Death Penalty',p. 155.
32 A comparisonmightbe madeherebetweenthe use of the guillotinein the caseof Louis
XVI'sexecution- the deliberatedistancingof the crowdfromthe momentof death- andthe
moreelaboratesecrecy,or at least, the absenceof publicityor ceremony,in the bulkof Soviet
executions.ForLouis'execution,see RichardSennett,FleshandStone:TheBodyandtheCity
in WesternCivilization,London,1994.
33 A survey cataloguingsome of this damage was published in the Party journal,
Bol'shevik,21:2, 1925,pp. 61-74.

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18 History Workshop Journal

34 A. I. Kvardakov,'Religioznyeperezhitkisoznaniii bytusel'skogonaseleniyai putiikh


preodoleniya',Aftoreferatdissertatsii,Novosibirsk,1969,p. 12.
35 The firstdecree on cemeterieswas passedon 7 December1918, and it attemptedto
control'privateenterprise'and'smallfamilyconcerns'in the burialbusiness.GARF, fond482,
opis4, delo 31, 1.40.
36 For the hygienic arguments,see V. Lazarev'saccount of the 1923 exhibition of
crematoriaandcremationin Sotsialisticheskaya gigieniya,3-4, 1923,p. 175.
37 GARF, fond5263opis 1, delo 12, 11.7-8.
38 GARF, fond5263opis 1, delo 12, 11.1-5.
39 A petitionsentto Kalininin 1930complainingaboutsuchpractices,andnotinginstances
of suicidein the faceof repressionanduncertainty,metwiththe replythat'ComradeKalininis
not in the leastinterestedin the questionof religionin this instance.He merelywantsto know
whatviolationsof the lawtook place . . .' GARF5263/1/7,72-8.
40 On revivalsandsurvivalsfromthe past,see Nosova, 'Traditsionnyi obryadirussikikh',
p. 139,andI. A. Kremleva,Pokhoronno-pominal'nye obychaii obryady,Moscow,1993,p. 37.
41 Nosova, 'Traditsionnyi obryadirussikikh',p. 137.
42 Citedin ForeignOffice,p. 341.
43 See George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers,Reshapingthe Memoryof the WorldWar,
Oxford,1990.
44 Kremleva,Pokhoronno-pominal'nye obychaii obryady,p. 35.
45 Mosse, FallenSoldiers,chapters1 and2.
46 SvetlanaAlexievich.ZinkyBoys:SovietVoicesfrom a ForgottenWar,London,1992,
p. 15.
47 On the denial of the famine and suppressionof the 1937 census, see Catherine
Merridale,'The 1937Censusandthe Limitsof StalinistRule', HistoricalJournal,39:1, March
1996,pp. 225-240.
48 Someof theseobservationsarebasedon interviewswithfaminesurvivorsconductedby
the authorin Moscowin 1995.
49 Manyof the observationsconcerningmemoryin this essay are to be tested througha
formalprogrammeof interviewswith survivorsin the next two years.Preliminarycomments
here are based on archivaland secondaryreadingand on memoirsources,togetherwith the
resultsof fourpilotinterviewsheldin Moscowin 1995.
50 Comparableexamplesfromothersocialistsocietiesare describedin Rubie S. Watson
(ed.), Memory,HistoryandOppositionUnderStateSocialism,SantaFe, 1994.
51 An excellent accountof the Lenin cult is given by Nina Tumarkin,Lenin Lives!,
Cambridge,Mass., 1983.
52 Observationbasedon the author'spersonalwitnessand discussionswithcolleaguesin
Moscow.
53 For some thoughtson the recent roundof trials, see TimothyGartonAsh, "'Neo-
Pagan"Poland',New YorkReviewof Books, 43: 1, January1996,pp. 10-14.
54 AlexanderandMargareteMitscherlich,TheInabilityto Mourn:Principlesof Collective
Behavior,New York, 1975.
55 Forexamples,see HeimannsbergandSchmidt,TheCollectiveSilence.
56 The full explanationfor the increase in Russian death rates, including,but not
exclusively,deathfrom suicide,remainunclear.See JudithShapiro,'The RussianMortality
CrisisandItsCauses'in AndersAslund,ed., RussianEconomicReformatRisk,London,1995.
57 On the Nolte controversy,see Norbert Kampe, 'Normalisingthe Holocaust?The
Recent Historians'Debate in the FederalRepublicof Germany',Holocaustand Genocide
Studies,2, 1987.
58 Onthe socialandpoliticalmarginalization of trauma,see JudithLewisHerman,Trauma
and Recovery:TheAftermathof Violence- FromDomesticAbuse to PoliticalTerror,Basic
Books, 1992.
59 HeimannsbergandSchmidt,TheCollectiveSilence,p. 6.

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