{"id":5499,"date":"2021-12-02T02:24:49","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T02:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mediateka.online\/learnrussian\/something-needed-to-be-done-a-brief-history-of-memorial-russias-oldest-and-most-prominent-human-rights-group.html"},"modified":"2021-12-02T02:24:49","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T02:24:54","slug":"something-needed-to-be-done-a-brief-history-of-memorial-russias-oldest-and-most-prominent-human-rights-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mediateka.online\/learnrussian\/something-needed-to-be-done-a-brief-history-of-memorial-russias-oldest-and-most-prominent-human-rights-group.html","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Something needed to be done\u2019 A brief history of Memorial, Russia\u2019s oldest and most prominent human rights group"},"content":{"rendered":"
A memorial wall at the \u201cWeek of Conscience\u201d exhibition organized by the Memorial Society. 1988.Sergey Smolsky \/ TASS<\/figure>\n

Many people associate Memorial with the study of Joseph Stalin\u2019s Great Terror. But for more than 30 years, this organization has also carried out crucial human rights work, on top of preserving the memory of victims of Soviet-era political repressions. Memorial\u2019s staff have played a key role in everything from hostage negotiations to helping refugees and political prisoners. Nevertheless, in November of this year, the Russian Attorney General\u2019s Office moved to liquidate the group\u2019s parent organization, Memorial International, for allegedly violating the country\u2019s legislation on \u201cforeign agents\u201d by failing to include mandatory disclaimers on its public materials. In this brief history, Meduza looks back on the life and work of Russia\u2019s oldest and most prominent human rights organization.<\/p>\n

In 1987, when the Soviet Union had already begun large-scale reforms, a group of young economists from Moscow and Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) organized a socio-political club in the capital called \u201cPerestroika.\u201d This discussion platform for advocates of change regularly drew several hundred people, who gathered in an enormous hall at the Central Economic Mathematical Institute. Their discussions went beyond economics, delving into the flaws of the Soviet system as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the speeches I [attended] the topic of repression arose maybe half the time. It was clear that this was the most interesting and important thing. It became clear that within this large audience of 400\u2013500 people there were a sufficient number of people who, like me, wanted something else. We talked and agreed that the repressions were bad. We agreed that something needed to be done so that this would never happen again,\u201d recalled Memorial\u2019s current executive director Elena Zhemkova.<\/p>\n

One day, after a regular meeting of the Perestroika Club, someone suggested that anyone who wanted to stay a little longer \u2014\u00a0and just like that the group that would become Memorial had its first meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018The KGB didn\u2019t put any obstacles in our way\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

One of the society\u2019s first initiatives was to establish a monument to the victims of political repressions in the USSR. Within six months, the activists had gathered several hundred thousand supporting signatures. By that time, they had already decided that not just a monument was needed, but a whole memorial complex, complete with a museum, archive, and library.<\/p>\n

In June 1998, a rally was held near the Dynamo Sports Palace in Moscow, calling for a memorial to victims of repression. It was the first time that Andrei Sakharov \u2014 a living symbol of the Soviet human rights movement \u2014 spoke in front of such a crowd. Experienced dissidents had joined forces with the young activists (they even helped organize rallies). And within a year the movement had expanded beyond the capital, with branches popping up in Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Kharkov (now Kharkiv, Ukraine), Voronezh, Tomsk, and other cities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The future members of Memorial\u2019s public board were elected openly. Volunteers on duty on Pushkin Square in Moscow urged every passerby to put forward their own candidate. The board was made up of those whose names came up most often \u2014 in the end, more than 20 people made the list, including Vitaly Korotich (the editor-in-chief of Ogoniok, a very popular magazine in the Perestroika era), Yuri Afanasyev (the future of rector of the Russian State University for the Humanities), poet Evgeny Yevtushenko, and politician Boris Yeltsin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The