Remember the Gulag? The Russyans do, too. Except there seems to be a bit of controversy among those who remember and those who want to forget, and those who live there. Yes, the monks who now inhabit this ancient place of such notoriety want to see it remembered as a religious holy sight while some want it remembered for the period of political repression carried out by the czars and the Bolsheviks and Communists.
Now there's a tug of war. Who will win? Who really cares? Yuri Brodsky, 69, has made it his life's work to expose the history of the politcal history of the gulag and its victims. He has written a book about Solovetsky. He wants the truth out now. PM Medvedev recently signed a document admitting and recognizing millions suffered and died in the gulag. Can you imagine? A russyan who admits anything? Shocking. Then we have Perm-36, a former gulag, now a museum of political repression. Almost like the Germans keeping the death camps around to remind the citizens of what can happen. Mr. Brodsky has written a 527 page book with photographs and personal statements of what went on in the camps. Who reads this book?
Now the orthodox church wants to weaken the history of the gulag and replace it with more church history. Hmmmm. What memory serves the world best?
Comments?
Solovetsky is actually a group of islands in the White Sea, on Russya's northwest border near Finland, above the arctic circle. Cold, cold, cold. Dark, dark, dark. Gulag No. 1. I wonder if Allies knew about it in WW II? Maybe, maybe not. Murmansk, a port city, is just around the corner to the west. It is one of the few port cities available to Russya during the winter. It was a port used to resupply the Russyans during the Great War against Germany. Nobody among the merchant marines talked about Solovetsky.
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