The Year 1937 and the Present
Memorial’s Theses
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The year 1937 has become a symbol for the mass murder and repression organised by the Soviet state and carried out against its own people. Seventy years later, the ominous influence of this catastrophe is still palpable. It has entered the people’s individual and collective subconscious and influences practices of the state and attitudes among the population. To overcome this legacy, a legal evaluation of the Great Terror as well as a comprehensive reassessment of the past is necessary. Only in this way is a consolidation of society and state possible.
(Osteuropa 6/2007, pp. 387–394)