The Institutionalization of Memory of Political Repressions in Contemporary Russian Society: A Comparative Analysis of the Activities of State and Civil Society Organizations

Konstantinov Mikhail Sergeevich ORCID: 0000-0003-2781-789X PhD in Politics Associate Professor; Department of Theoretical and Applied Political Science; Institute of Philosophy and Socio-Political Sciences; Southern Federal University 105/42 Bolshaya Sadovaya str., Rostov-On-Don, Rostov region, 344006, Russia konstantinov@sfedu.ru Other publications by this author

Fedosov Matvei Vasil'evich Student; Institute of Philosophy and Socio-Political Sciences; Southern Federal University 344006, Russia, Rostov region, Rostov-on-Don, Bolshaya Sadovaya St., zd 105/42 fedosovmatvey@gmail.com

Introduction

The contradictory attitude towards the interpretation of historical events in the Russian socio-cultural space was formed long before the institutionalization of memory policy, which is confirmed, in particular, by differences in the perception of such key events as the 1917 Revolution, the Civil War, the repressions of the 1930s and the Great Patriotic War. Each of these events caused numerous and often diametrically opposed interpretations both in the scientific community and in the mass consciousness, which indicates deep splits in the collective memory long before its institutionalization. This thesis is confirmed by historical precedents, the results of which remain the subject of scientific controversy and public discussion to this day. Among such paradigmatic examples, there are numerous facts illustrating the political repression of the Stalinist period. Their assessment in Russian society remains extremely polarized to this day ^[12]. In the post-Soviet period, an idea was formed about the need to integrate negative historical experiences into the collective memory in order to prevent the repetition of such experiences. This function has been partially assumed by public organizations of a historical and research profile, however, a legitimate question arises as to the conformity of their practical activities with the declared statutory goals, in particular, in the context of the constitution of the historical memory of repression in the public consciousness. Equally important is the problem of aggregating the efforts of state institutions of collective memory, focused on consolidating society, with the practices of public organizations, whose critical attitudes towards the most traumatic events of the past can "work" to reproduce social divisions and contradictions.

Theoretical and methodological basis of the research

The purpose of this study is to analyze the activities of public and private organizations in the process of institutionalizing the historical memory of Stalinist political repression in modern Russian society in the period from 1987 to 2023. The realization of this goal required solving the following tasks: - to conduct a comparative institutional analysis of public and private organizations involved in the preservation and study of the memory of repression in Russia; - to investigate the transformation of approaches to commemoration of repression in the context of changes in the state policy of memory; - to identify the mechanisms of the constitution of historical memory in the context of the political transformation of Russian society; - to determine the role and effectiveness of various institutional actors in shaping the collective memory of the Stalinist repressions; - to study the dynamics of the interaction between official and unofficial narratives of the memory of repression.

The object of the study was the institutional practices of preserving and broadcasting the historical memory of Stalinist political repression in Russian society in the period from 1987 to 2023. The subject of the research includes the activities of public and private organizations in the process of institutionalizing the memory of repression, their structural and functional characteristics, mechanisms of influence on the formation of collective ideas about the repressive policies of the Soviet period, as well as the relationship between various actors of memory policy in the context of the transformation of Russian society.

The working hypothesis of the study was the assumption that the process of institutionalizing the memory of Stalin's repressions in Russia is characterized by a growing contradiction between state and non-state actors, in which state organizations gradually monopolize the right to form an official historical narrative, displacing alternative forms of commemoration represented by public organizations. At the same time, despite institutional pressure from the state, non-governmental organizations continue to perform an important function of preserving critical and traumatic memory, transforming into new, more adaptive forms of civic engagement. As it seems to the authors of the article, at this stage of the institutionalization of collective memory of the Stalinist repressions, it is private organizations that should find ways to join forces with state memory institutions in a joint "study of the past" in order to minimize the negative consequences of the most traumatic events of the past.

In the process of testing this hypothesis, results with signs of scientific novelty were obtained.: - the research synthesizes the theoretical concepts of cultural memory and critical discourse analysis with an empirical study of the activities of specific public organizations in Russia; - the idea of a contradiction between institutional rhetoric and the actual activities of memory organizations is substantiated in the context of the formation of post-Soviet historical consciousness; - it is shown how the processes of institutionalization of memory can lead not to unification, but to a conflict-stratified historical narratives, reflected in the socio-political climate.; - the necessity of combining the efforts of public and private institutions of collective memory in studying the most traumatic events of the past in order to eliminate social divisions and consolidate society is substantiated.

Methodologically, the research was based on a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach in which methodological tools of historiography were used to analyze historical sources and discussions around repression, sociology of memory to study collective representations and mechanisms of their reproduction, political sociology to identify the role of political institutions in shaping narratives about the past, and critical discourse analysis to interpret rhetoric and symbolic practices of memory organizations. The theoretical basis of the research was the concepts of collective memory by M. Halbwaks, cultural memory by J. Assman, memory policy by P. Nora and institutionalization of memory by A. Assman.

One of the most important and relevant concepts of collective memory was proposed by the French sociologist, a student of Emile Durkheim, Maurice Halbwachs. He showed that human memory is formed in the context of social interactions.: "... As a rule, a person acquires his memories, recreates them in memory, recognizes and localizes them in society" ^{[19, p. 28]}. At the same time, individual memory is always based on collective memory and exists only insofar as this individual is a product of a certain group, participates in its thinking and identifies himself with its past ^{[19, p. 29]}. Accordingly, collective memory differs among different social groups (classes, strata, strata, etc.), since each of them creates its own "memory framework": "Each group creates an idea of its past, which reflects the consciousness of its unity in time and its uniqueness in relation to other groups" ^{[19, pp. 306-307]}. Finally, the most important thesis of M. Halbwaks is the statement about the dynamic characteristics of memory: the past is not preserved in a fixed and unshakable form, it is "reconstructed based on the present" ^{[19, p. 30]}.

M. Halbwax's ideas were developed in the concept of cultural memory by the German cultural scientist Jan Assmann ^[2]. According to his proposed distinction of communicative and cultural memory, the key difference between them is the process of institutionalization of the latter: "Communicative memory encompasses memories that are associated with the recent past. These are the memories that a person shares with his contemporaries... Cultural memory is aimed at fixed moments in the past, while the ability of cultural memory to reconstruct the past is related to how this past is attached to the narratives and images fundamental to this group" ^{[2, pp. 52-55]}. Unlike communicative memory, cultural memory has its own specific institutional carriers: shamans, bards, griots, priests, teachers, artists, writers, scientists, Mandarins and other "authorized knowledge" ^{[2, p. 56]}. Assman emphasizes that due to institutionalization, cultural memory is the basis for the formation of collective identity, going beyond the communicative memory limited to 3-4 generations, and extending over periods of hundreds and thousands of years through texts, rituals, monuments, and other cultural practices.

This institutional aspect of memory was further developed in the concept of another German cultural scientist, Jan Assman's wife Aleida Assman ^[1]. Aleida Assman focuses on the institutional aspects of memory, its dynamics and transformations, especially on the transition of individual memories into various collective forms through the processes of medialization and institutionalization. She expanded the juxtaposition of individual and collective memory, which has been relevant since the time of M. Halbwachs, to four "memory formations" that differ in terms of spatial and temporal range, group size, and the degree of stability of this group: individual memory, social memory (memory of a social group), political memory (memory of a nation's political collective), and cultural memory. memory ^{[1, p. 13]}. The distinction between active and passive memory ("canon" and "archive") is also of conceptual importance: functioning cultural memory maintains a limited stock of texts, images, and rituals that actively circulate and are passed down from generation to generation. Reference memory, or "archive", is a passive form of storage that preserves the past as the past ^{[1, p. 34]}. According to A. Assman, the institutionalization of memory is the process of creating and legitimizing social institutions designed to regulate the practice of commemoration and thereby form public consciousness regarding significant historical events ^{[1, p. 149]}. Finally, two other conceptual issues are closely related to the institutionalization of memory: the dynamics of memory and forgetting, as well as memory locations and traumatic memory. As A. Assman herself noted, memory consists not only of the processes of memorization, but also of forgetting, which cannot be separated from each other; forgetting is not the opposite of memory, but its integral part ^{[1, p. 142]}.

The concepts of "places of memory" and "traumatic memory" are important for the analysis of repression. Traumatic memory is understood as a form of collective memory associated with events that caused deep psychosocial trauma, such as mass repressions, wars, and genocides. In the case of the Stalinist repressions, traumatic memory manifests itself in the inability of society to fully integrate this experience into the national narrative, which is expressed in a contradictory symbolic assimilation of the past – from glorification to taboo. The analysis of traumatic memory allows us to trace how the collective makes sense of the traumatic past, and how the institutional and cultural mechanisms of its commemoration or repression are formed. According to P. Nora, places of memory are formed when one feels the loss of living memory and require institutional replenishment: archives, memorable dates, etc. ^{[20, see also: 13]}. P. Nora emphasizes that modern memory policy is inextricably linked with the formation of national identity and manifests itself through the construction of places of memory – material, symbolic and functional points the crystallization of collective memory, which become instruments of state policy and nation-building.

Thus, the dynamic concept of collective memory developed by Maurice Halbwaks, Jan and Aleida Assman, as well as Pierre Nora, which includes the concepts of institutionalization, intentional amnesia, memory sites, trauma, etc., provides research tools with extremely high heuristic potential for analyzing the problems of commemoration of Stalinist political repression. In addition, the described methodological approach, which focuses on the institutional aspects of memory, as well as its carriers, allows us to study the activities of state and public organizations as a key factor in the transformation of historical memory in social groups.

The methodological innovation of the research is also the application of the method of comparative institutional analysis to identify structural and functional differences between public and private organizations. As N.E. Koposov notes, "a comparative analysis of collective memory institutions makes it possible to identify latent mechanisms of instrumentalization of the past by various political actors" ^[5].

The research uses methods of qualitative and quantitative content analysis of public speeches by heads of memory organizations and official publications on their web resources. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the financing and staffing of the organizations under study. According to O.Y. Malinova, quantitative methods of studying memory policy acquire special importance when analyzing the institutional aspects of commemorative practices ^{[7, pp. 148-149]}.

The time frame of the study covers the period from 1987 (the year of the foundation of the Memorial Society, symbolically marking the beginning of the institutionalization of the memory of repression in post-Soviet Russia) until 2023 (the year of the liquidation of Memorial in Russia and the activation of the state policy of memory, which allows us to record an important stage in the transformation of institutional practices in the modern political context) (the foundation of the Memorial Society) until 2023.

The theoretical significance of the research lies in the development of a conceptual framework for studying memory politics in the Russian context, and the practical value lies in identifying effective mechanisms for the constitution of historical memory in the context of political transformation. As I.I. Kurilla rightly points out, the study of institutional aspects of memory policy has not only theoretical, but also applied significance for the formation of civic identity in post-Soviet societies ^[6].

Conceptualization of the problem of institutionalization of memory

The institutionalization of memory involves the consolidation of certain versions of the past through stable norms, practices, and organizations with symbolic and/or legal authority. In the context of Russian society, the distinction between official and alternative memory institutions is particularly relevant, which allows us to consider the processes of competition and the coexistence of different narratives. According to A. Assman, institutionalization is accompanied by a process of selective memorization and oblivion, as a result of which a "canonical" past is formed, mediated by mechanisms of power ^{[1, pp. 141-149]}. Government institutions, as a rule, ensure the transmission of normative versions of history through school education, museum policy, and official ceremonies. On the contrary, public organizations such as Memorial seek to institutionalize counter-memory by offering alternative forms of commemoration and interpretation.

Within the framework of the Russian process of institutionalization of memory, two key aspects can be distinguished: exploring the past and overcoming the past. These processes are considered not only as a moral imperative, but also as a necessary condition for the stable development of society ^[10].

In the context of the historical memory of Stalin's political repressions in modern Russian society, the study of the past is manifested through the permanent actualization of the significance and scale of historical events (the creation of museum complexes, memorials, landscaping of historical locations, the formation of research funds and organizations specializing in the study of the discourse of political repression). Overcoming the past is realized through the integration of historical experience into public consciousness, its assimilation at the empirical and theoretical levels (rehabilitation of the repressed, amnesty of those convicted on commemorative dates, preventive measures against potential repressive tendencies through the participation of civil society in shaping public policy).

Thus, the institutionalization of the memory of the repressions of the Soviet period can be conceptualized as a process of incorporating the characteristics and consequences of Stalin's political crimes into the collective consciousness of Russian society in order to prevent their recurrence. This process was initiated during the perestroika period, when numerous materials about the "cult of personality" and "millions of victims of forced labor camps" were published, archives of state security agencies containing hard-to-read data were declassified, and previously banned fiction and scientific literature were legalized. In parallel with the trends towards glasnost and democratization of society, non-profit autonomous organizations of a voluntary nature were formed, the purpose of which was the empirical research study of the discourse of repression and the expansion of their mental significance in society.

The role of public and private organizations in the institutionalization of memory

As a result, government agencies have also shown interest in exploring this issue, which in one form or another have participated in the formation of relevant communities. Two interrelated trends can be identified in this process: on the one hand, the state promotes the creation and dissemination of formally autonomous social institutions with a given thematic focus; on the other, it seeks to institutionalize them and, if possible, regulate their activities and membership. This is usually explained by the need for timely response and prevention of speculation on historical facts.

The general vector of functioning of most Russian organizations of this kind has gradually shifted from the analysis of the dissemination of the results of research on repressive policies towards the differentiation of "spheres of influence" between the state and civil society, with the clear dominance of the former. Of course, the subordination of historical research communities dealing with the topic of repression to state guardianship cannot be characterized exclusively in a negative way.: It involves sustainable funding, institutional support, the inclusion of new topics in the research agenda, as well as the involvement of qualified specialists from academic and university circles. However, the key problem of such cooperation lies in the loss of autonomy: any research initiatives inevitably fall under the influence of government policy, which significantly limits the freedom of scientific research.

Similar processes have affected individual research historians who have become embroiled in political and ideological conflicts ^[10] as active participants in the professional community. The consequence of this can be, and often is, the political bias of their research.

In total, within the framework of the analysis of research communities of a historical and comparative profile specializing in the study of the memory of the Stalinist repressions, two main categories of organizations can be distinguished: official, established with the support of state institutions and continuing to receive their funding, and private, founded solely on civil initiative and with private funds.

The first category includes the Russian Historical Society (RIO), the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO) and the Association of School Teachers of History and Social Studies, established in 2010 on the initiative of Deputy Minister of Education I.I. Kalina ^[9].

RIO and RVIO are complementary structures, which is confirmed by the chronological proximity of their institutions.: RIO was established in May 2012, and RVIO – in December of the same year by decree of the President of the Russian Federation. The main function of these organizations is to mediate and legitimize the official position on memory policy issues ^[17]. This is indicated by a number of circumstances: firstly, the symmetry of some provisions of the statutory documents (in particular, the declaration on "countering attempts to distort history and eradicate scientific and historical dilettantism"), which determines the coverage of historical events, including political repression, exclusively in the context of official documentaries, which implicitly leads to the dominance of one interpretation of historical events. working on alternative points of view.

Secondly, there are a significant number of official officials and government organizations among the founders of both societies (the chairman of RIO is the acting Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, Sergey Naryshkin, and the chairman of RVIO is Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation, V.R. Medinsky) in the complete absence of individuals and associations. Thirdly, the financing of these organizations is carried out mainly from the federal budget with a tendency to an annual increase in funds ^[16].

Consequently, these expert communities were created by the state in order to form, accumulate and reproduce a loyal expert scientific opinion that legitimizes the state policy of memory. Thus, the process of establishing the memory of Soviet political repression, initiated by RIO and RVIO, is usually associated with the actualization of conventional ideas about this historical period.

The Association of School Teachers of History and Social Studies ^[3] is distinguished by a specific target audience – the school community. According to the Association's code, its goal is to effectively resolve the current problems of the teaching community and consolidate the teams of history teachers. However, in fact, this organization functions as a translational mechanism for the official interpretation of historical and political events from teachers to students. In the school course of national history, political repression plays a marginal role, which leads to a lack of critical reflection among students on the causes and current relevance of this phenomenon. The high receptivity of the younger generation to information led to the priority creation of the Association (2010) in comparison with RIO and RVIO (2012). Broadcasting the official position on the political repressions of the 20th century to the younger generation seems to be a more effective strategy compared to the past experience of state interaction with Soviet generations and the generation of the 1980s and 90s, which formed in the 90s of the 20th century. as a result of this interaction, an overly critical attitude towards the past of their own country, which in the "zero" years was replaced by an apologetic one the attitude. While the study and reception of the past presupposes a balanced attitude towards both problematic periods of history and an understanding of the conditions that gave rise to them.

Private organizations for the preservation and study of the historical memory of repression are based on private investments by initiative citizens and operate on the basis of their collective will. This category includes Memorial societies ^[8] (recognized as a foreign agent, activity is prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation), Last Address ^[14] and the Free Historical Society ^[4].

Memorial was founded in 1987 as a continuation of the historical and educational section of the Democratic Perestroika club ^[15]. During the period of democratization of society, it became possible not only to openly discuss the phenomenon of repression, but also to use previously classified archival documents. However, since the 2000s, there has been a transformation of state historical policy with an emphasis on "civilizational self-sufficiency" and the priority of educational aspects of historical narratives ^[9]. According to the charter, Memorial's activities are aimed at "perpetuating the memory of victims of political repression and restoring historical truth" ^[18], as well as "promoting the development of civil society, the legal consciousness of citizens and a democratic state governed by the rule of law in order to prevent a return to totalitarianism" ^[18].

There is a divergence of the main goals of public and private organizations: while the former broadcast the official position on repression to the whole society (while trying not to modify the historical truth, but on the contrary, declaring "the prevention of distortion of historical facts"), the latter carry out an in-depth analysis of archival materials and critically (sometimes, admittedly, overly critically) evaluate an official discourse aimed at preserving the "historical truth". Moreover, Memorial's range of activities includes not only historical and educational work, but also rehabilitation of the repressed and their descendants, as well as human rights activities in the context of modern human rights violations.

An illustration of this activity can be found in the federal program "On Perpetuating the memory of victims of Political Repression"^[1] developed in 2013 by Memorial in cooperation with the Russian Orthodox Church and government agencies, which provides for the creation of new museums and "places of remembrance", the introduction of commemorative dates for victims of repression along with state and church holidays, as well as the incorporation of There is no detailed information about political crimes of that period in school and university textbooks. Initially, there was interest from both society and the Government in participating in this project. However, in 2014, it was announced that it was inappropriate to adopt this program and its proposed innovations.

Simultaneously with this decision, legal and public pressure on Memorial increased, which resulted in the identification of a number of administrative and criminal offenses in the organization's activities and the subsequent termination of the legal entity's activities in 2021. Despite this, in 2022, the former chairman of the Society announced the continuation of the organization's work without registering a legal entity as a voluntary association.

Summarizing the activities of Memorial in the context of the constitution of the memory of repression in Russian public and cultural discourse, it can be stated that it was oppositional in relation to the official interpretation and sought to expand citizens' ideas about repression and the mechanisms of their instrumentalization in the modern political system. At the same time, as it was shown in the previous section, State organizations have also never denied the very fact of repression. Rather, the issue lies in the emphasis: state organizations emphasize the historical reasons that led to the repression and the need to "live" this topic, in the sense that it should remain in the past; Memorial and some of its similar private organizations, on the contrary, constantly emphasized the facts of repression, actualized these facts in the public consciousness which, of course, is important for the transfer of memory from the "archive" to the "canon" (A. Assman), but in a political sense, it can have a negative result of increased conflict in society. Therefore, the discrepancy between state memorial structures and private ones in the interpretation of such traumatic events of the past as the Stalinist repressions is quite understandable.

The Last Address is a project supported by Memorial and pursues similar goals of spreading the memory of specific repressed people by installing plaques on the facades of houses where the convicts lived. However, this initiative also faced a problem: cases of vandalism against memorial plaques, their dismantling, as well as conflict situations with representatives of city administrations criticizing the expediency of the program and pointing to its "inconsistency with the Department of Urban Planning", which qualifies the initiative as an administrative offense or "arbitrariness".

Despite the contradictions between the activities of the project's implementers and administrative and bureaucratic requirements, it remains in demand among people whose families were directly affected by repression and imprisonment in the GULAG system. According to a sociological survey conducted in 2021, 70% of Muscovites express a positive attitude towards the Last Address project, while only 16% of respondents demonstrate a negative attitude ^[11].

The Free Historical Society (VIO) has significant points of contact with both Memorial and Last Address, as well as with the Association of School Teachers of History and Social Studies (with the difference that VIO works with the whole range of facts and avoids ideologically biased conclusions): His activities are focused on discussing the shortcomings of teaching history and the implementation of memory policy in the Russian Federation as a whole (including political repression).

The tasks of the VIO are in many ways congruent with the aspirations of Memorial to resist the concealment of reliable facts and to counteract their manipulative use in public space. However, the significant difference lies in the more moderate position of the VIO regarding interaction with government agencies and political trends in general. As a result, the Free Historical Society functions effectively, carrying out autonomous research without focusing on an official position, unlike Memorial, which had significant difficulties in dialogue with the government. According to the authors of the article, it is the VIO that can become an institutional model in solving the problem of consolidating the efforts of the state and civil society to work out the memory of the Stalinist repressions, without leading to a deepening of social divisions and conflicts.

Institutional dynamics: between the State and civil society

The formation of institutional memory structures in post-Soviet Russia took place in the context of a clash of various actors, narratives and political interests. The Memorial Society, founded in 1987, became the first major non-governmental organization to declare its goal to preserve the memory of political repression. It combined research, educational and human rights activities, which made it a unique institution in the field of historical memory.

From the very beginning, Memorial has developed as an independent initiative based on the principles of voluntary participation, openness of archives and critical attitude to the past. His activities were aimed not only at recording the facts of repression, but also at creating a stable cultural and educational infrastructure of memory: electronic databases, plaques, commemorative events, publications of memoirs. This approach corresponds to the concept of "active memory" by Aleida Assman, focused on overcoming trauma through recognition and institutional consolidation ^[1].

On the other hand, since the 2000s, the influence of the state in shaping memory policy has increased, especially in relation to the Soviet period. State institutions such as the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO) have begun to promote more heroic and patriotic interpretations of the past, in which repression occupies a subordinate place. These organizations perform the functions of "canonical memory", legitimizing a single state narrative ^{[1, p. 150]}. In this context, there is a shift from a pluralistic model of memory to the monopolization of historical discourse by the state.

The juxtaposition of Memorial and RVIO as institutional actors demonstrates key differences in the strategies of commemoration: the former organization relies on traumatic and critical memory, the latter on integrative and mobilization. These differences manifest themselves both in the semiotics of public rituals, as well as in the structure of funding, personnel, types of sources and channels of information dissemination. For example, Memorial's publications rely primarily on archival documents and personal testimonies, while RVIO's materials often use synthetic narratives and symbolic images of Soviet heroism.

It is important to note that the liquidation of Memorial in 2021 does not mean the disappearance of the institutional memory of repression as such, but indicates the transformation of the conditions of its articulation. New initiatives are emerging, often in digital form (for example, the projects "Last Address", "Bessrok"), which take over the functions of the commemoration outside the official institutional field. This corresponds to the model of "dispersed (accumulative) memory" proposed by A. Assman, when memory exists in the form of fragments distributed over various media and practices, without a single center ^{[1, p. 33]}.

Thus, the institutional structure of memory in Russia is formed as a field of tension between state and non-state actors, between centralized and network logic. A comparative analysis of these models makes it possible to identify not only the ideological, but also the organizational parameters of the "struggle for the past." However, as it seems to the authors of this article, the practice of "cooperation for the past" rather than fighting will be more productive. And one of the institutional examples of such cooperation between private memorial organizations and the state may be the "Free Historical Society", which is looking for and finding ways to productively interact with government agencies, while maintaining an attitude towards the inadmissibility of falsification of historical memory and concealment of reliable facts.

Conclusion

Summarizing the analysis, the following conclusions can be formulated: the instrumentalization of elements of the historical memory of repression and the process of its constitution by state structures demonstrates a stable character, which is most clearly manifested in the ideological and power-management aspects. The process of updating the controversial issues of Stalinist repression in the memory of Russian society has gone through all the stages described by Aleida Assman: transitions from the "archive" to the "canon", from "dispersed (accumulative) memory" to "functional", etc. No less interesting are the contradictions revealed between "political memory" (which tends to be unified and instrumentalized; Russian state institutions have assumed the functions of preserving and broadcasting this memory) and "cultural memory", which always "resists such narrowing" ^{[1, p. 35]}. As it was shown above, private organizations claimed to be carriers of this type of memory in Russia, but at the moment they are increasingly assuming the functions of accumulative memory. As Aleida Assman rightly noted, the preservation of memory in a dispersed form gives practically nothing in terms of studying the past ^{[1, p. 33]}. This kind of memory needs to be updated in the public consciousness, only then it is able to overcome social amnesia. Therefore, in the context of the described process, Russian public organizations engaged in research on the subject of Stalinist repression should maintain an active position in order to prevent mass historical amnesia and degradation of public consciousness, which in terms of consequences may surpass similar phenomena of the Stalinist era. But at the same time, it is equally important for public organizations to find ways to cooperate with state commemorative institutions in order to develop a joint memory policy, which will help reduce the conflict-causing potential of traumatic events of the past.

^[1] See: Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 1561-r dated August 15, 2015 On the Concept of State Policy to Perpetuate the Memory of Victims of Political Repression | Documents of the PRIME Tape: GARANT [Electronic resource]. URL: https://www.garant.ru/products/ipo/prime/doc/71064538 / (date of access: 04/11/2025).