Uroki Istorii – About Our Project
Today, it is difficult to talk about the past because the present daily shows us that we are at the most dangerous and tragic historical point for Eastern Europe since World War II.
Do historical analogies help us understand the present?
Those who study Soviet history, especially the history of political repression, constantly encounter actions in Russia by people who have not absorbed even the slightest lessons from history. This evokes a feeling of despair and helplessness. Yet, no matter how challenging, the historian’s task is to explain why we have arrived at this point today.
Turning to history should not serve to draw direct analogies and parallels, because history does not repeat itself. But knowledge of history is crucial for understanding the mechanisms and methods authorities may use and the direction of their trajectory. Today, understanding history is also necessary because Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is justified through historical myths, and the task of historians is to counter these false narratives with real facts and seek answers to difficult questions.
For instance, which of the current events stem directly from unresolved issues of 20th-century history? How do we discuss Soviet and post-Soviet history today, more than a thousand days after February 24, 2022? Where can we find the right words to describe the past and then pass this historical knowledge on to school-aged teenagers and young adults? How can we structure the teaching of 20th-century history so that it remains free from Soviet clichés and contemporary propaganda?
These questions are central to the updated version of the project “Lessons of History”, which we are relaunching after more than two years of hiatus. During this time, Memorial was liquidated in Russia, Russia invaded Ukraine, and most of the employees, colleagues, and friends of Memorial left their country. This project addresses Soviet and post-Soviet history as seen from today’s perspective; history through the lens of human rights — and the history of the human rights concept itself; current historical debates; the fake narratives and myths proliferated by Russian propaganda to justify external aggression and internal repression; how other countries have dealt — or still struggle to deal — with the legacies of dictatorships; as well as the All-Russian historical school competition “A Person in History: Russia in the 20th Century”, which ran from 1999 to 2021 and, starting in 2023, has continued as an educational program for Russian-speaking teenagers worldwide.
Everything the “Lessons of History” project accomplished before its relaunch remains available on the old website and is gradually being republished on the new site under the section “Project Archive.” Among these earlier materials are many important publications backed by substantial effort, which we aim to preserve. Due to technical reasons, some publications are currently unavailable, but we are working to restore the site’s digital archive. Of course, the new historical situation demands new tags, sections, and topics. These include the colonial policies of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, the history of its former and current colonies, the mechanisms of historical propaganda and falsifications, the history of Russian-speaking emigration in the 20th century, and the experiences of other dictatorships, from Nazi Germany and Francoist Spain to Latin America. There are also many other historical narratives not directly linked to the USSR but containing parallels that are important to us.
We hope that, over time, the “Lessons of History” project will become a useful and significant agent of change in public history, the teaching of history, and memory politics. These changes are inevitable; they are already happening. It is essential to keep working with the past so that we never wake up in either 1937 or 2022.
