The hero of our #AboutImportant series is journalist and TV presenter, the author of projects "Namedni. Our Era" and "Russian Empire", Leonid Parfyonov. We talked to him about the repressions in his family and why the memory of generations did not work in Russia.
— Are there any repressed individuals in your family?
— My great-grandfather, Vasily Andreevich Podkhodov, a peasant from the village of Yorga in the Cherepovetsky district of the Vologda region, was shot at the end of 1937. He was considered a former kulak – in fact, he laid bricks, but since he fired them himself, it was considered a "factory." In 1931, he was dekulakized, and in 1937, he was implicated again – as a "former" and accused of creating a "terrorist organization." Whom and how he terrorized in those local swamps? I have photocopies of his case on two pages, decisions of the "troika" – it's a narrow strip of paper. Even smaller – a reference to the execution of the sentence, and again, with a line – rehabilitation in 1960 "due to the absence of the elements of the crime," as usual. Well, it's understandable, it affected all his relatives – some more, some less.
— Was the topic of repression present in your family?
— Of course, this story has been with me all my life. My father was born in the house of his maternal grandfather, Vasily Andreevich. And I myself met his great-grandmother, the widow of Vasily Andreevich. I came into this world just before this very rehabilitation, so I was also part of a family of a relative who was deemed an "enemy of the people." So yes, we talked about it, and the understanding of the enduring evil was always there.
— There is now an official law on preserving the memory of the victims of repression, but at the same time, dozens of monuments and memorials have been destroyed in the country, and many researchers on the topic are persecuted. Why do you think this is happening?
— Because the Russian authorities see themselves as heirs to the Soviet regime. For them, every acknowledgment of state terror in the USSR casts a shadow on the current government. It turns out that not only blessings emanate from the institution of "Moscow, the Kremlin."
— We couldn't help but ask this question as the author of the "Nammedni" project. Many now compare what is happening in Russia either to Stalinist repressions or to the times of Brezhnev or Andropov. Do you think such comparisons are appropriate, and if so, how can Russia break free from this endless cycle of violence?
— Literally, of course, nothing repeats itself. The key difference lies in the nature: the USSR was a closed totalitarian system, while Russia, even with the current tightening of screws, remains authoritarian. The state does not monopolize everything: work, housing, education, sectors of the economy, information. In general, free travel abroad is still allowed. Restoring the Soviet system not only territorially but also in terms of its social essence is already impossible.
— Repression, memory of repression, it's also family memory, isn't it? Can it work?
— It can, but you see - it didn't work. It wasn't widely passed down as inheritance, we have to admit. Most of my grandparents' and even parents' peers usually kept quiet if there were repressed individuals in their family. Even during the short Khrushchev period when revelations about Stalinist terror were encouraged, people were still afraid. All those "condemnations of abuses during the cult of personality period" remained a top-down campaign. And under Brezhnev, it was completely abandoned. So the generational relay of "we lived through this and even believed in everything, so now at least you know and don't fall for it" - was not passed on.
— At what age do you think we should talk to children about repression? And if you can, recommend a few books that schoolchildren should read?
— I'm not quite sure how to adapt this topic for children. Perhaps it should all start with explanations: what is the state and why, what purpose does power serve, what it should do for people, and what should be categorically prohibited for it. Why have political beliefs, why have elections, political competition, and the rotation of rulers. And in the sixth grade, let them read "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" - it's quite accessiblely written.
The interview was conducted by Lydia Kuzmenko.