From the “Riddle of the tenth kilometer” to the “Country house of the Moon King”: simulacra in the Big Terror theme

Abstract

The paper dwells upon commemoration process at the sites of mass executions and burials in the city of Irkutsk. The main body of sources for the paper is the archive of readers’ letters to Irkutsk newspapers in 1988-1989 (most of these letters have not been published previously). When the search began in Irkutsk for the mass grave site, fears about possible traumatic experiences (both for the people themselves and “for society”) confronted both the actualization of public discussion about Stalinist repressions and the people understood the need or at least the inevitability of such actualization. The site of mass executions and burials was proved as such thirty years ago, and a memorial was created on site. But for thirty years since, both stable and new mythological elements of commemoration have been being reproduced. They “function” in conflicts that arise around the memorial, create an emotional tint and mask the fact that working on the unresolved historical trauma is postponed.