On Thursday the Supreme Court of Karelia decided not to change the measure of restraint imposed on Yury DMITRIEV after he was charged with new offences, reports the Interfax news agency. His lawyers had challenged the decision of the Petrozavodsk City Court on 21 August to extend his detention in custody for a further three … Continue reading Dmitriev to remain in custody
Dmitriev 3 (2018-20)*
Memory Wars?
A lengthy article about the POW execution theory in Russia’s Kommersant newspaper (7 September 2018) is even-handed and thorough. It needs little more than the following passage, however, to show the "new hypothesis of Karelian historians" for what it is: “Officially, there is no data to show that the Finns carried out mass executions at … Continue reading Memory Wars?
“They were in a great hurry”: The Russian Military-Historical Society presents its findings
On 4 September, Karelian historian Sergei Verigin and spokesmen for the Russian Military-Historical Society held a press conference about their recent excavations at Sandarmokh. Their words were widely reported by the official RIA Novosti / Russia Today news agency -- but only in Russian. The usual simultaneous publication in English and other languages was, for … Continue reading “They were in a great hurry”: The Russian Military-Historical Society presents its findings
Everyone has now heard of Sandarmokh
"The events of the last few weeks have been depressing, but it's true to say that almost everyone knows the word Sandarmokh today; before it was only known in Karelia. No excavations by the Russian Military Historical Society can change that. Only people who do not see the significance of the subject are inclined to … Continue reading Everyone has now heard of Sandarmokh
Politically-motivated excavations
Russia has turned to politically-motivated excavations to rewrite the history of the USSR in the late 1930s, writes Halya Coynash, after jailing a major historian of Stalin's Great Terror yet again. A new attempt to rewrite the history of the Great Terror in the Soviet Union appears to be under way in Russia. This renewed … Continue reading Politically-motivated excavations
The Dmitriev Affair 