Dr. Irina Scherbakowa Reports on the Work of Memorial

Born in Moscow in 1949, historian, publicist, and Germanist Dr. Irina Scherbakowa co-founded Memorial in 1989 and worked for the organization until its ban. Today she lives in exile in Germany. In her lecture,“Memorial – 35 Years of Fighting for Remembrance,” she gave account on the activities of the Russian human rights organization and explained why looking into the past is crucial to understanding today’s developments in Russia.

With the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, Memorial began to come to terms with the Stalinist rule: According to Scherbakowa, they have, among other things, shed light on the Gulags, the Soviet penal and labor camps, and established a database with information on around four million victims of repression, in order to give them visibility and  “to get them out of the dust of the camps.” The organization also has erected monuments and installed memorial plaques.

“At that time, people in Russia thought the country was on the path to democracy,” Scherbakowa reported. However, in the 1990s, neither were the perpetrators of the communist regime prosecuted, nor were lessons learned from the past, and new structures built, so that this development did not last long. According to Memorial, a first red line was already crossed with the first Chechen war from 1994 to 1999, during which gross human rights violations were committed and xenophobia was fueled in Russian society.

Looking to the past in order to understand the war against Ukraine

“In light of a difficult economic situation, Russian society has ultimately chosen stability in the form of the Putin government over freedom,” the historian stated. Over time, the president has abolished democratic institutions and civil liberties, promoting a strongly national-patriotic doctrine. The Second World War has been increasingly de-historicized, a militaristic spirit and “myth of victory” have spread, and old stereotypes like the West as an enemy have been revived. “All of this plays an important role in understanding the current situation and the war against Ukraine, where we observe, for example, a distortion of the Nazi concept,” Scherbakowa said. “Seeing myths and historical glorifications used to justify actions and increase their acceptance among the population can sometimes lead historians to feel despair and powerlessness.” She explained that Putinism as an ideology exclusively looks to the past and, unlike communism or other dictatorships, is not future-oriented.

A law on “foreign agents,” enacted in Russia in 2012 and tightened several times, ultimately led to the liquidation of Memorial in Russia in 2022. Dr. Irina Scherbakowa does not assume an imminent end to the Putin government. Nevertheless, she concluded her lecture with a hopeful appeal: the destruction of the old order and old paradigms can often be frightening, especially for older generations. It can, however, also be productive, and it is primarily up to the younger generation to be critical, define a European order, and come together in this way. “Values such as freedom, democracy, and human dignity are universally valid – and defending them is more important today than ever,” said the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Numerous questions following the lecture demonstrated the audience’s great interest in Scherbakowa’s experiences, the political situation, and the work of Memorial, which continues to be active in other countries through its branches.

About the lecture series “Initial Spark”

In his welcome address, the President of TU Dortmund University, Prof. Manfred Bayer, drew a line from the Nobel Prize to Dortmund: He reminded the audience that the prize was endowed from the fortune of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of explosives, who was equally concerned about peace and the advancement of knowledge in four scientific fields. At the Dorstfeld colliery near the Dortmund campus, Nobel had once conducted experiments that enabled the “initial spark,” which today lends its name to the university’s lecture series. The events are sponsored by the Wilo-Foundation. Previously, guests included Prof. Reinhard Genzel (Nobel Prize in Physics 2020), Prof. Benjamin List (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021), Prof. Erwin Neher (Nobel Prize in Medicine 1991), and Prof. Frances Arnold (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018).

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