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Ðóññêèé  Deutsch

HISTORY WITHOUT RETOUCHING

 

On October 30th Russia celebrates the Day in commemoration of the victims of political reprisals. On this day, according to tradition, a whole series of events is going to take place in the Krasnoyarsk Museum Centre (Mira Prospect No. 1).

Political persecutions are and will always be a matter of topical interest in our country. However, it is not easy to find one’s way throught the immense flow of information on political reprisals and tell the truth when talking about those horrible years. This very serious problem is taken up once again by a methodical seminar for history researches, who deal with the subject of „political reprisals in the USSR“. The seminar is going to start in the Museum Center on October 29th at 11 am. The best scholars of Siberia will meet here on this occasion to exchange the results of their work with colleagues and, what is of considerable importance, as well, with schoolteachers, who will later tell their students about the chaotic times of the Stalinist repressions.

The most important action in the course of this seminar will be the presentation of a methodical CD to study the political persecutions in the Krasnoyarsk region. This unique, methodically developed teaching aids was elaborated by researchers of the Krasnoyarsk „Memorial“ Organization of Historical Illumination and Educaton, Human Rights and Charity. The CD comprises rare and very valuable information: articles, research reports, documents and photos, which will help history teachers to demonstrate the sad sides of our history to the young generation.

On October 30th, the campaign „Remembrance of the heart“ will be carried out in Krasnoyarsk, in the course of which, at 3.30 pm, the exhibition „Retouched History“ will be opened in the Krasnoyarsh Museum Center. The exhibition is dedicated to the fate of the peoples, which suffered from the methods of totalitarian regimes. The initiators of this exhibition will tell about people’s fate within the system of an autoritarian state on a historico-documentary basis.

The exhinition is based on the book „Stalin’s retouching“ by David King. It gives the visitor the possibility to realize with his own eyes the mechanism by the aid of which Yosef Stalin made use of the art of photography, in order to make a way for himself to unlimited power and to even completely erase the remembrance of its victims. On the orders of the dictator all those were entirely removed from from group pictures who, in the course of the political purges, suffered from persecutions. The exhibition tells about the terrible times, when people were exterminated by the cruel mechanism of the GULAG and when man was robbed the possibility to recall them to his mind by painting them over by sprayers and then scraping them off the photographs.

Another event of this campaign is a concert of the leading artists’ groups of the town. It is also dedicated to the Day in commemoration of the victims of political reprisals. The concert will start in the Small Hall of the Krasnoyarsk Philharmony at 4.30 pm.

At 6 pm there will be a minute’s silence in memory of the dead; wreaths will be laid at the memorial stone, the place of the future memorial of the victimes of political reprisals.

At 6.20 pm, during a solemn ceremony, commemoration festoons and candles will be lowered to the waters of the river Yenisey – in memory of the perished prisoners.


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