Victims of repression remembered in the Komi Republic

A memorial evening “Light a candle in remembrance” was held on 26 October in the city of Siktivkar (the Komi Republic of the Russian Federation) to honour the victims of the political repressions.  The evening began with a reading from Anna Akhmatova’s “Requiem”, and included an exhibition both of photographs from the 1930s and paintings by Nikolai Gelman who was himself a prisoner of the GULAG and a performance by bards.

During the evening the first part of the eighth volume of “Martyrolog” was presented Its main editor and the President of the fund “Pokayanye” [“Repentance”] Mikhail Rogachev explained that the work contained  “The Ukht-Pechorsky Camp: pages of its history” written by Anna Kaneva, an Usink historian, lists of the prisoners of the Vorkuta camps, as well as biographical notes about some of the prisoners.

Mikhail Rogachev also presented another book: “Notes of an exile, or we don’t know our crime”, by the Lithuanian author Altirdas Iono Sherenas, published after the author’s death. Sherenas lived in Komi and collected material about Lithuanian victims of repression.

Another harrowing publication was “Hostages of time”, dedicated to the children of those repressed between 1930 and 1956 who were themselves held in the camps. The booklet gives information about their life, their parents, photographs, some archival documents, a short bibliography of documents containing the most information regarding this aspect of the GULAG.