The all-Russian competition of historic papers of students of upper class levels “Man in History. Russia – 20th century”, which is carried out by the International “Memorial” Organization, cannot be compared to any other competition. Its participants find out details about the history of their fatherland in the past century from the fates of just common people.
In any case, the jury of the competition particularly accentuate those papers, which are dedicated to the fate of individuals and his little town or village.
In any case, the jury of the competition particularly accentuates those papers, which are dedicated to the fate of man and his little town or village. This tendency is once again confirmed by the results of the tenth all-Russian competition. This year the authors of the best forty papers were invited to come to Moscow. The jury was also very interested in some of the papers, which only managed to pass the third and second tour of the selection procedure.
They were honoured regionally. Thus, students of the upper class levels of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Republic of Khakassia were honoured by certificates, diplomas and books.
During the inaugural address in Shushenskoe the chairman of the Krasnoyarsk “Memorial” Organization, Aleksei Babiy, pointed out that the competition primarily set itself a very high and rather utopic target. “It was more or less a kind of specific vaccination against totalitarism. If a student studies carefully, tries his best to put himself in the position of a common man, even if this man did not face any repressions at his time, there is a fair hope that this very student, having become an adult and maybe some civil servant by profession, will not behave towards us like a well-functioning little screw within state machinery”.
The above-mentioned competition has some indigenous aims, as well. Having
become aware of the fact that the papers of the particpating students might also
be of a certain interest for other people, the organizers started to put them on
the internet. Thus, the publication on the website of the Krasnoyarsk “memorial”
Orgnaiztaion about the fate of the Russian-Germans, who were deported into the
Siberian widths during the war, evoked a big echo in Germany:
“There is even evidence on our Vera Yegorovna Wagner!” Es it turned out the
family of our former compatriot did not receive any news about the fate of their
relative for more than sixty years. And only now the threads torn apart a long
time ago, could be joined together.
Or let us take another example. In May, during the telecast “Maximum” broadcasted by NTV, there happened a mini-sensation – a report about the fate of Lavrentiy Beriya’s nephew, who had to undergo repressions. Supposedly, this subjectmatter had never been broadcoasted, if there had not been this paper written by students of the settlement of Kliuchi in the Achinsk District, who had just become interested in one specific question: Why are these little four-line songs about Beriya still that popular in our settlement? They tried to clarify this phenomenon and, supported by the “Memorial” Organoization, who submitted a corresponding request to the State Authority of Interior Affairs, received the following reply: in fact, one of Beriya’s close relatives had been exiled to Kliuchi. The description of his Siberian epopee, which can be read on the internet, inspired members of the staff of NTV to make an official trip to Siberia in order to prepare the subject for a very unusual television programme.
„These research papers done by the students are somewhat – alive!” – says Aleksei Babiy. – Many of the photos attached to these papers, photos showing illegally repressed compatriots, get published in our Book of Memory. The next volume, volume 7, will contain the serious papers of two students. Moreover, we intend to publish the best papers of the year 2008 written by students of the upper classes who live in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Republic of Khakassia in an omnibus volume”.
When talking about the results of the 2009 competition, we should also bring up the advancing of the Krasnoyarsk people. It was the first time that a representative of our twin region, Antonina Vakhrusheva from a school in the village of Osernoe, Yeniseysk District –placed second in the all-Russian competition of history papers. The value of her paper is not only with the fact that she did everything on her own initiative, but also with the author’s striking sincerity. “My trading post Sym – a national village”, - wrote the girl, who was born in this remote taiga settlement and has been living here in great solitude for more than 16 years. – In this place we find Evenks, Ketes and Russians, mainly ancient believers. In this tiny populated area the people are facing big demographic problems, problems regarding public health, migration, a reasonable way of life, legal order and education. In every other place the people somehow managed to organize their lives after all; here in our little settlement, however, it seems, as if life got frozen, but it is actually going on according to its own unwritten law. Here we live in a forgotten world”. You will certainly read the rather extensive paper the student wrote about her little settlement in one breath. You are fascinated by all the unknown details of all-day life which the residents of the former trading post are confronted with, and you will feel all the pain coming rom their fates. “Fathers and mothers are buried in oblivion – they are lost for the entire lineage, they lost their own language – and now the language is lost for the entire people, and finally you will forget about the land you live on and fly away like a bird’s feather”. But this has already become a matter of fact!”
Tatiana Inozemtseva from Zelenogorsk chose an entirely unexpected topic for her paper – “Serving totalitarism. Man behind barbed wire fences”. She reported about the fate of a man, who at his time was the head of the special department of a camp, from which the town of Zelenogorsk emerged after all. “You usually imagine that exclusively wild beasts were working for the GULAG camp system. And, in fact, there were a lot of sadists, - said Aleksei Babiy during the presentation of the paper, which ranked third in the all-Russian competition.- Inozemtseva’s hero was a decent fellow in his way. By the twist of fate he happened to get into the masticator of the system and – acted his part. Author and project leader of the papers tried their best to put themselves in the position of this man, who was supposed to keep a jealous watch on entirely innocent people. The student wrote about it without the slightest unnatural pathos, without any accuses against either party”. Just because of its outstanding objectivity the jury decided to price this paper.
Nikolai Abdin, chairman of the „Memorial“ Organization in the the Republic of Khakassia, who presented papers written by students of our republic in Shushenskoe, pointed out that they had been more active in the past year (when 40-50 papers had been received). This year students from all over Khakassia had only sent 12 papers in all.
Nowadays, there are quite a lot of teachers of history and social studies in Khakassia, who are interested in working on the subject specified for the competition. From among them Nikolai Stepanovich mentioned: Igor Yakushin from high school N° 20 in Abakan, as well as Lida Andrianova from the Kopevsk village school of general education. Igor Stanislavovich’s pupils regularly present their papers in the course of the competition; the thematic variety can be educed from the numerous headlines:” The origin of my family name”, “Vladimir Vysotskiy. His attitude towards state authorities”, “The country – jurist and corrective labour camp”. Lidia Vasilevna is a commendable teacher of the Republic of Khakassia, an excellent adept in local history and geography, as well as in museum matters. Her students always take part in this “Memorial” project and – usually receive good results. It was not for nothing that, in the annoversary year of the competition, the jury decided to name Lidia Andrianova the best history teacher of the Republic of Khakassia.
This time, a paper prepared by Aleksander Fiskov ranged among the top hundred in Russia, and it was Lidia Andrianova who assisted with its realization. The topic of research was: “Human fate in view of the Russian-Chinese relations”. – “I tried my best to base the paper on a short historic background by reporting about the fates of our compatriots, who blundered into the masticator of great policy for various reasons, - the graduate of the Kopevsk village school said. – I just wanted to shop, how quickly it might happen that our state policy makes common people hostages and victims of currently prevailing circumstances”. The paper is based on statements of eye witnesses about the fatal events of the 20th century. These witnesses are inhabitants of Ordzhonikidze District – Russian resettlers from Mandzhuria, a former border guard, who excelled at watching the state border with China in 1979, and others.
Aleksandr Aksyutenko, also a student of the eighths term of the Kopevsk village school, wrote about „Army traditions and daily routine of the soldiers “. – “Some time ago, I took a look at my grandparents’ family album; I stumbled upon an old photograph showing some young officer. I wanted to know who it was. Hence, I addressed this question to my grandfather. At that time I did not have the slightest idea that this picture was the beginning of my research activities, that many more questions would come up later-on, for which I would try to find an answrs in family archives, museums and conversations with compatriots, who had served in the army. Anyway, the photo had awawkened my interest, and my primary curiosity turned into desire for fascinating research activities, which finally even joined my entire family in assiduously working team”. The student, who will soon defend his fatherland himself, was not only interested in army traditions soldiers are proud of, but also in the delecate problem of military service in general. The problem of the so-called “dedovshchina”, this very harsh rule of seniority in the armed forces preys on my mind all the time, - the student confesses.- On the one hand, this old ,improper principle was just a confirmed habit, which, in the opionion of old public and civil servants was not considered to be that bad at that time: on the other hand, I face up to the facts, noticing that they have undergone changes, that under today’s conditions they have grown into unlimited lawlessness and arbitrariness, among which the practice of mockery, sarcasm and humiliation is not exceptionel at all – in a time, when every human being felt the meaning of being a free individual. The young people who dispose of a distinct feeling of their own dignity, who defend their human and civil rights, want to be treated respectfully, which, in my opinion, often leads into a conflict, into this very “dedovshchina” – with catastrophic consequences”.
Diana Balasova, who wrote about “the history of the little village of Krasniy
Kliuch” on the basis of memoirs of its long-established inhabitants, came to
Sushenskoe together with her teacher Nina Kysychakiova in order to present her
paper. Nina Fedorovna added the following words: “Diana only removed to Krasniy
Kliuch about two years ago. She is an adopted child. She studies diligently and
is quick at learning. It was my intention to introduce our village to her, to
make her get familiar with her new surroundings. As a result she wrote down the
history of Krasniy Kliuch – starting with the formation of the kolkhoz farm in
this little hamlet up to the presence. Unfortunately, there are quite a lot
villages of our kind, which slowly disappear. We have a basic primary school,
but there are hardly any pupils, and who knows about how long the village will
yet continue to exist…:” By the way, during the presentation ceremony in
Sushenskoe, the speakers stressed out the specific topicality of the issue:
disappearing villages – a fact, which afflicts all Russia. And just for this
very reason it is important to pass all historic knowledge of one’s little home
village to the next generation.
It is of great importance to record the reports of those whoare still alive, so
that they can tell us what they have seen and experienced in their century.
“Otherwise we have to rely merely on official documents, but they are full of
lies”, - said Babiy.
Moreover, it is essential to write down the story of a concrete person, not just of some very common person, but of a person who excelled in his life. “Some people live a live that comprises a whole epoch” is the title of Nataluia Kicheeva’s paper. She is a student of the Khakassian National residential grammar school. Her apper is about the life of oculist Nikolai Odezhkin. “the reason for why I was interested in this man’s life?” – repeated Natasha the question addressed to her. – Well, it is because he operated on my grandfather”. Together with her project leader she was working on this subject of her choice for three years. The grammar school pupil was so deeply impressed by Nikolai Odezhkin’s heroic deed, who liquidated the trachoma in Khakassia, that she decided to become a physician herself. “I am going to matriculate with the medical Academy”, the tenth-grader noticed the audience about her plans for the future. – Having become an oculist, I will have the chance to intensely engage myself in the problems of blindness and amblyopia. And, maybe, I even succeed in finding the reasons for the ophthalmic disease of the century – the glaucoma. Maybe, stem cells or medical genetics might help with this”.
Unfortunately, this time there were not as many profound and elaborate research papers from students from Khakassia and the Krasnoyarsk Territory about illegal political repressions as there used to be the years before. Nonetheless, Liubov Manysheva. responsible secretary of the Commission of Rehabilitation of rights of victims of political repressions with the Khakassian government, expressed her gratitude to the participants of the “Memorial” project:
“Thank you for recalling the names, that you try to memorize them in history, to find roots, highlight them and give them strength and potency”. She also induced the audience to think about why rehabilitated persons are often afraid of addressing themselves to the government body – “they are people of outstanding modesty, who are a great credit to their home country, although the totalitarian regime, unfortunately, turned them into “enemies of the people”.
***
Instead of an epilogue I would like to come back to the observations made by the organizer of this competition - Irina Shcherbakova. “Ten years have not just gone by like one single day.
From competition to competiton situations in our country have changed – and that is not all.
The very first papers were still written on typewriters, some had even been written by hand.
To one of these papers a letter was attached: “Please accept my apologies for the delayed passing in of the paper. This is due to the fact that the printing machine is standing in the neighbouring village. We could not get there, because there were snowdrifts all over the area. This is why we were forced to send the paper with a ten days’ delay”. Nowadays we receive all papers by computer, and this is just one of the basic changes that took place. More serious changes concern the time frame of the issues proposed and determined by us. We will probably have to change them as from next year. The 20th century is dying away. At the very beginning of the competition there were still a lot of time witnesses alive who experienced the 1930s. The grandparents of our today’s authors were children of the 1940s. History seems to more and more depart, is increasingly becoming a part of mythology, and we are very well aware of this fact. And yet, in spite of the fact that they try to rewrite history and even schoolbooks, our competition proves that human memory is alive, that it has not got lost – fortunately. The thirtythousand papers we received in these ten years – that is not only thirtythousand names, but many dozens more, and I would say that, at large, they stand for Russia as a whole. Using the words of Andrei Platonov: “Without every single individual a people is not complete”.
Vera SAMRINA
Abakan – Shushenskoe – Abakan
„Khakassia“, 14.07.2009