Following on from the previous post on Putin this article from today’s Guardian introduced me to a new term – re-Stalinisation.
The dispute focuses on a new school text book which names Stalin as one of twenty Great Russians. Miriam Elder suggests “Liberal figures have been fighting against creeping “re-Stalinisation” in Russia. Three years ago, a refurbished Moscow metro station was opened featuring a large quote from the dictator. Last summer, members of the Communist party unveiled a bust of Stalin in the central Russian city of Penza.” In a similar vain, Orlando Figes claims here that “his Russian publisher had cancelled a contract to publish his latest book on life under Stalin, saying it had apparently dumped the project because of political pressure”.
The first story presses lots of buttons for me. Beyond drift to reaction point I made in the earlier post, it also raises the question of what school History should be for.
One final thought – the book also includes Ivan the Terrible. Stalin greatly admired Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich, but claimed he made one mistake – at the end of his life he repented his brutality. Stalin however, never said sorry…
