One month to go until we return the names On October 29, people around the world will gather to read aloud the names of those silenced by Soviet terror — repressed, executed, exiled. One by one.

In the USSR, archives were sealed. Historian Nikita Petrov went hunting elsewhere — in old newspapers. There he found the faces and names of Soviet officials… until they suddenly vanished, erased as “enemies of the people.” The regime didn’t rewrite the past — it just stopped printing it.

A postcard that carried hope across the Iron Curtain In July 1979, Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus signed a small pink German postal card in exile in Magadan, far in the Soviet Far East. Next to his signature, he squeezed in a few extra words:

Our colleagues Alain Blum and Emilia Kustova from @memorial-france.bsky.social Memorial France have received the Grand Prix of the Rendez-vous de l'Histoire 2025 — France’s most prestigious history research prize!

Memory needs your support.

Their names erased. We bring them back. Every year on October 29, people across the world gather to speak aloud the names of those executed and silenced by Soviet terror. Each name is a stolen life. Each name spoken is an act of defiance against forgetting.

Alaska 2025: No Dangerous Deals — Global Civil Society Speaks Out

Never Safe: Russia’s Ethnic Minorities from Empire to Today. On Aug 9, the world marked Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Russia — home to 40+ indigenous peoples & 120 ethnic minorities — boasts of “multicultural harmony”… even writing it into its Constitution.

July 11 is the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica

On July 10, 1938, 44 people were executed in Bashkortostan — then, the Bashkir ASSR. Among them were representatives of the Bashkir intelligentsia, accused of “bourgeois nationalism” and “counterrevolutionary activities.” #bashkortostan #repressions #theater

“If you misbehave, we’ll send you to the Politburo!” In an elite Stalin-era psychiatric hospital, this did not refer to the highest governing body of the Communist Party. “The Politburo” was the intensive care unit for violent patients.

Today, on the morning of July 8, security forces in Syktyvkar conducted searches of the houses of the employees of the Revolt Center and the independent exhibition space itself. The space bears the name of one of the founders of the Komi Memorial and the broader Memorial movement, Revolt Pimenov.

Torture of civilians by Russians in temporarily occupied territory is a crime against humanity

“I am in a worse position than a spy behind enemy lines.” Soviet trans history.

She rejected Beria, went through the Gulag, and when she was released… She became an investigator and imprisoned dissidents. This is not the plot of a novel, but the real biography of Nina Gnevkovskaya, found in the archives.

In December 1977, poet Gennady Trifonov sent an open letter to the editorial office of Literaturnaya Gazeta from Labour Camp No. 398/38 in the Western Urals. #queer #resistance

Russia is to remove Ukrainian language from curriculum in occupied Ukraine Photo: Mariupol school ’opens’ under Russian occupation. Credit: Hromadske Radio #khpg #ukraine

“But I wanted to live, not play a role, even if I were wearing a new costume. I wanted harmony between my internal world and the world outside.” In 1973, a man named Innocent wrote this to Viktor Kalnberz, who successfully performed a series of gender-affirming surgeries on him two years prior.

#WorldRefugeeDay: On the protection of the rights of Ukrainian children affected by the war Children are a particularly vulnerable group in the process of seeking asylum and all kinds of displacement, and require special support when returning to the country and reintegrating.

How archival materials kept former KGB agents from presenting themselves as the victims. We’re continuing to tell you about the new educational project by Zukunft Memorial, “Talking Archives,” which helps show us that there are real, living stories hidden within the documents.

In honor of Pride Month, we, together with @comingout-global.bsky.social, are bringing you some excerpts from their Report on the life of LGBTQ+ people in Russia in 2024 (created together with the Sphere Foundation), that bring you some good news from Russia.

Yuri Dmitriev was placed in a punishment cell again. He was sent there for five days on June 11th, for supposedly failing to properly “carry out morning exercises”.

June 12 is the Day of Solidarity with Russian Political Prisoners For the 3rd year in a row, Russian media and human rights organisations hold a charity marathon in solidarity with political prisoners.

“Living in Western Europe convinced me that it is Europeanism, or cosmopolitanism, that does not denounce particular national variations of shared ideas and forms, that is the best basis for Ukrainian autonomy; and all academic and political activity must be based on an international foundation.”

On June 10, 1938, the Soviet Politburo issued a resolution, according to which ethnic Chinese Soviet citizens were to be “voluntarily” deported to Xinjiang. Those who wanted to stay in the USSR were to be relocated to designated areas in the Soviet Far East. #deportation #china

International Archives Day — June 9 Today, we’re presenting “Talking Archives: Stories Hidden among the Papers,” an educational project by Zukunft Memorial and Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen, with support from @evzfoundation.bsky.social and Zimin Foundation.

“Huge, huge-huge thank you! For the priceless time that you spent, for your attention and help. Time is one of the most important things in life, something you cannot get back. It is the only real thing; everything else is trivial, like a soap bubble ready to burst.”

A death sentence for “ideological sabotage”, six Russian drone attacks and living through captivity: the story of a volunteer who saves civilians in the Donetsk region.

#Memoryactivism in honor of Alexey Navalny’s birthday Our follower sent us photos of two homemade memorial plaques. They were put up on the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, where “Navalny” received an Oscar in the “Best Documentary Feature” category in 2023.

In our #what_is_my_responsibility rubric, we continue sharing thoughts from people looking for answers to questions of personal choice and responsibility. Today, we are talking about Mstislav Rostropovich. #dissidents #resistance

Occupied Ukrainian territories now rank below North Korea in the Freedom in the World report. In today’s material from the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, we share how Russia dragged occupied territories into scoring negative (-1/100) on the freedom scale, as measured by Freedom House.

❗Urgent appeal: help Ukrainian prisoners in Russia For months, Memorial has been supporting Ukrainian citizens held in Russian prisons on politically motivated charges on our own. But the need has grown too large, and now, we are asking for your help.

“We didn’t reject the Soviet power. We didn’t know anything different, so we accepted what we had. We tried not to notice it, laughed at it, but we were not anti-Soviet. We became so only after the war, after we turned thirty.” Writer, dissident, architect and World War II veteran Viktor Nekrasov.

On May 22, 1961, a spontaneous memorial action happened in Kyiv. Taras Shevchenko admirers gathered around his monument near Kyiv University, laid flowers, read his poems and sang songs based on his texts. #resistance

May 21st marks the birthday of Andrei Sakharov, one of Memorial’s founders and its first chair. We continue to remember his speech at the inaugural assembly of Memorial in January 1989. #sakharov #history

Polish military award reliefs have been dismantled in the “Mednoe” memorial complex. The regional prosecutor’s office found “anti-Russian” symbolism in the military cemetery memorial. Photos: toptver.ru, tverigrad.ru.

A monument to Stalin in occupied Melitopol In today’s material from the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, we share the story of Russia now importing its mounting glorification of a mass murderer responsible for acts of genocide against the Crimean Tatar people and Ukraine.

On May 14, 1972, 19-year-old Romas Kalanta poured petroleum on himself and set himself on fire in the center of Kaunas. His last words, “Freedom for Lithuania,” became a symbol of resisting Soviet authorities. #resistance

49 years ago, on May 12, 1978, physicist and human rights defender Yuri Orlov announced the founding of the Moscow Helsinki Group at a press conference in Andrei Sakharov’s flat. #dissidents #resistance

“Forgetting about our own recent past means not only betraying the memory of millions killed and tortured to death. It also means betraying yourself and your children.”

“To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause.” Meeting with author Benjamin Nathans. Paris, May 20. Mémorial France is pleased to invite you to a meeting with Benjamin Nathans, author of “To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause,” Pulitzer Prize winner in the “General Nonfiction” category.

Russian invaders fill occupied Donbas with ‘monuments’ rewriting history and inciting hatred for Ukraine In today’s material from the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, we share how Russia rewrites history in real time, using memory culture to paint Ukraine as the aggressor.

"I don’t use 'responsibility' as a complete synonym for 'blame'. Rather, I’m talking about a certain degree of realizing the consequences of the stances you take. In this scale, no awareness is also a step on this ladder."

“Freedom from the Communist Party for the unions! Meat for the workers!” On May 1, 1980, a traditional Labor Day demonstration took place in Krivy Rih in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast of the Ukrainian SSR. Among the usual posters, however, we could find one that told a different story.

Palm Sunday Sumy attack called “revenge” by Putin, while UN monitors report a terrifying increase in Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians Photo: Friends grieving for 17-year-old Danylo Khudia and other victims of Russia’s missile strike on 23 April. Credit: Serhii Nuzhnenko, Facebook

Valery Chalidze on the responsibility of a generation “I don't mean that everyone should be plagued by guilt for what they have not done. No, I'm talking about constructive responsibility. It's found in actively resisting evil, not in tearfully repenting for the sins of our fathers and neighbors.”

Every year on April 24, the anniversary of the day when the Ottoman authorities issued a decree to arrest and deport Armenian intellectuals from Istanbul in 1915, thousands of people walk up Tsitsernakaberd Hill in Yerevan to honor their ancestors.

The The Memorial to the Deserter and Other Victims of Nazi Military Judiciary (often called simply the Monument to the Deserter) in Hamburg is the biggest memorial of its kind in Germany. Photo: Alexey Markin

The first interview of the “Między Innymi” project is now available with English subtitles! You can watch the interview in Russian with English subtitles here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY9Z...

85 years since the Katyn massacre. Statement by the Board of Memorial International Association on the inadmissibility of glorifying war criminals.