Konflikty pamięci? — O interpretacjach historii Gułagu

Until the end of 1980s, the topic of Soviet persecutions was tabooed in the USSR. Political and social transitions that took place in that period finally eroded the wall of silence. The stories about Gulag past started to appear in the newspapers and the witnesses finally spoke. The reconstruction of the history of the Gulag, proposed at that time, became the cornerstone of the public memory of this historical experience. In my paper, I use Michel Foucault’s concept of anti-history in order to analyse the methods of interpretation and commemorating of these tragic events of the 20th century by the Memorial Society and by the Russian Orthodox Church. It was these two institutions who were the most active in the process of forming the contemporary perception of the Gulag. The interpretations proposed by them are comprehensive constructs that explain the Gulag system in all its complexity. On the basis of materials gathered during field research in Russia, I deconstruct the significance of secular and religious anti-history discourses and analyse their influence on the perceptions of the Soviet persecutions in today’s Russia.