A short while back I published an interview with Fredo Arias-King, in which we reviewed Russia’s brief flirtation with lustration law – a debate which at the time tapped into that difficult area of the politics of memory.  The lustration example, and the state’s resistance to it, was only the most recent in a variety of incidents which have illustrated Russia’s particular discomfort before its own recent history.  Grappling with the past and coming to terms with exactly how much history is beneficial and how much is destructive to national unity is something encountered not only by most post-Soviet states, but also an unavoidable experience encountered by any country after the fall of one regime and the transition to the next. 

So it was with great interest that I read this article in the New York Times, titled Nationalism of Putin Era Veils Sins of Stalin’s.  The article reports on the efforts of the beleagured historian Boris Trenin to uncover the mysteries of the disappeared under the reign of Joseph Stalin in the city of Tomsk, Siberia – but finds his research blocked by the administration, as the KGB files he is seeking to access have been sealed from public access.

What interest would the Kremlin have in denying public access to the archives of the Soviet Union?  What is behind this increasing effort to control the portrayal of history, manipulate the national memory, and, in some cases, whitewash the crimes of former leaders who have nothing to do with the current Russian Federation?