The history of memory is critical for understanding present-day Russia, where history is being distorted in order to justify the largest land invasion in Europe since WWII. Since Russia’s Supreme Court ordered the closure of the International Memorial Society—Russia’s oldest human rights and civic organization—in December 2021, local historians have taken on Memorial’s work as best they can. 

Former Title VIII Research Scholar Tyler Kirk examined how victims of Stalinist repression and members of civil society came together to write an alternate history of the Soviet Union as it collapsed. He highlighted how Gulag survivors influenced the history and memory of Stalinist repression in the USSR and why their narratives are unwelcome in Russia today.