Author Description

"After Stalin's death, the Soviet Union dismantled its enormous system of terror and torture. Sixty years later, Russia remains the land of the unburied. Memorials to the victems of the gulag are inadequate, and their families have received no significant compensation. In contrast to the Nazis, who created a clear boundary between victims and perpetrators, the Soviet regime terrorized people arbitrarily. Its agents and targets were blurred, and perpetrators themselves often became victims. Though the scale of terror was comparable in Russia and Germany, their memorial cultures could not be more different. This book's premise is that late Soviet and post-Soviet culture, haunted by its past, has produced a unique set of memorial practices. Combining memory studies, psychoanalysis, and critical theory, Etkind shows how post-Soviet Russia has turned the painful process of mastering the past into an important part of its political present. From the Thaw of the 1950s through the protest movement of the 2010s, Russia's incomplete mourning for its millions of Soviet-era victims helps us understand its ongoing drama." -- From back cover.