ERR (Estonia): National Archive finds streets named after Red Army soldiers inappropriate. “A report compiled by the National Archives of Estonia has found that commemorating fallen Red Army soldiers in public space by naming streets after them, is inappropriate and incompatible with contemporary understandings of Estonian history and culture.”
Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation: IPLC Launches the LGBTQ+ Communities of the Former Soviet Union & Eastern Europe Web Archive. “The collection archives a broad range of websites maintained by and for the benefit of LGBTQ+ communities in the independent countries of the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. These websites document news, events, and issues within these diverse communities, and often provide helpful information about where to seek health, legal, and other assistance in their countries of origin.”
Radio Free Europe: In Russia’s War On Ukraine, Historians Find Themselves On The Front Lines, Figuratively And Literally. “In recent years, Russia has fiercely resisted efforts to shed light on Soviet-era repressions and to name the security agents who killed millions of Soviet citizens under dictator Josef Stalin and other Soviet leaders. At the same time, Ukraine – since the 2013-14 Maidan protests drove Russia-backed President Viktor Yanukovych out of the country – has been throwing open Soviet archives and releasing troves of detailed information about the past.”
The Conversation: Putin’s war on history is another form of domestic repression. “Although Putin’s historical revisionism has been most intense around issues surrounding the Second World War and the supposed historical justification for ‘reunion’ with Ukraine, it has also had a profound effect on another aspect of Russian history that hasn’t received as much attention — the study of Stalinist repression in the Soviet Union.”
Reuters: Czech Group Shifts From Documenting Historical Nazi, Soviet Traumas to Aiding Ukraine’s Defence. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given new purpose to a Czech group, switching its focus from documenting memories of the past under Nazi and Soviet domination to supplying flak jackets, drones and helmets to Ukrainians defending their country…. Memory of Nations has run an online database of testimonies since 2008 documenting stories of people from when Czechs and Slovaks lived under Nazi occupation during World War Two or four decades of Soviet-dominated Communist rule that ended in 1989.”
Washington Post: He spent years uncovering the Stalin-era execution of his great-grandfather. Lawsuits seek to bury the evidence.. “As cold cases go, Denis Karagodin’s mission was as bleak as the winter in his native Siberia. For nine years, he has been digging into Russian and Soviet archives to find out who killed his great-grandfather Stepan Karagodin in 1938 during the purges and iron-fist rule of Joseph Stalin…. But digging up the truth from the past can still bring trouble in today’s Russia.”
Calvert Journal: Mask media: Soviet Kazakh health posters from the 1970s. “Vladimir S. Tverdokhlebov’s posters for the Kazakh Red Cross from the 1970s offer an offbeat aesthetic for public safety. Humour, floral imagery, and a playful use of layout counter the cynicism of the time, medicine for the weary then and now.”
Michigan State University: Collapse and Rebirth: A Living Archive on the Collapse of the USSR and Beyond. “The Living Archive is creating a first of its kind publicly accessible digital archive that documents the events surrounding the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and the severe economic and social challenges that followed. Hosted on The Living Archive website, the collection provides a chronicle of the defining events of the late 20th century. It highlights key events on regional maps containing a time lapse component.”
Delfi: Lithuania launches new website with detailed list of anti-Soviet resistance participants. “The Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania has launched a new website… that contains the first publicly-accessible detailed list of participants of the Lithuania’s anti-Soviet resistance war of 1944-1953. The list is not final, the center says, and now includes 12,799 names, including those of people killed in the battlefield, executed by firing squad or those who died in prison.”
HNet: Digital Primary Resources: Soviet Jewish veterans of WWII. “The Blavatnik Archive (BAF) is pleased to announce that 2,700 of 12,921 total items in the Veteran Testimonies & Ephemera Collection are fully digitized, cataloged, and accessible online… BAF’s Veteran Testimonies & Ephemera Collection, the largest collection in the world on the experience of Jews in the ranks of the Soviet armed forces during WWII, was launched in 2006. Nearly 1,200 unique video testimonies by veteran soldiers and partisans have been recorded in eleven countries, mostly during the period of 2006-2014.”
Russia Beyond: INSIDE the cockpits of legendary Soviet planes (PHOTOS). “Many people dream of sitting in the cockpit of a plane. But what about the cockpit of historical aircraft? Now it’s possible even online thanks to Sasha Gentsis’ ‘Ruling the Skies’ photo project. Gentsis took some incredible shots of the inside of rare aircraft from the collection of the Central Museum of the Russian Air Force.”
The Calvert Journal: Watch the birdie: how a papier-mâché horse in Tbilisi Zoo grew into a popular photo studio. “I was born in Tbilisi in the 1980s, back when the country was still a part of the Soviet Union. Visiting the zoo was a special event for me: it meant that I would get a Plombir ice cream, a cup of sparkling gazirovka (a non-alcoholic sparkling beverage), and a ride on an amusement ride adjacent to the premises. But the highlight of the day would always be getting the chance to sit on the papier-mâché horse that looked like it had galloped from a merry-go-round ride. I remember being helped onto the horse, filled with anticipation and excitement at having my photo taken, but also overcome with shyness in front of the photographer.” The author is working with the descendants of the photographer to crowdsource a collection of these images. […]
Ukraine Independent Information Agency (UNIAN): Ukraine declassifies Soviet KGB archives on Chornobyl disaster. “A total of 229 declassified documents, most of which are being published for the first time, cover the period from the early 1970s to November 1986, that is, until the commissioning of the Shelter (Sarcophagus) following the blast, the SBU press service reports. Archival files show that more accidents took place at the Chornobyl NPP prior to the catastrophic disaster of 1986, although authorities managed to completely hush them down.” It appears that the documents are freely available to read, but of course they are in Ukrainian.
Radio Prague International: Website Puts Spotlight On Waves Of Czechoslovaks Interned In Notorious Soviet Gulag. “Thousands of Czechoslovak citizens were among those who passed through the vast network of brutal Soviet labour camps known as the Gulag. In recent years Prague’s Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes has carried out extensive research into this little-known historical chapter – and has just shared its findings via a brand new website. I spoke to the Institute’s Adam Hradilek, who said Czechoslovaks had ended up in the Gulag in several waves.” The site is current in Czech, but English and Russian versions are on the way.
Culver City News: Polish Solidarity Collection Donated to Wende Museum. “The Wende Museum of the Cold War received a groundbreaking collection of materials from the Polish Solidarity movement, an anti-Soviet and anti-authority movement that is credited for playing a vital role in the collapse of the Soviet Union during the 1980s. The Polish Solidarity is a trade union that was formally started in September of 1980 in Poland and was made up of a group of workers that were striking against the scarce economy, rising food prices, and authoritarian state under a Polish government that was controlled by the Soviet sphere of influence.” Plans are to digitize the collection and make it available online.
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