ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to investigate how the “difficult” heritage of the period of mass repression of the first decades of the Soviet Union is now being denied significance and is becoming both a victim of revisionism, and a weapon in the hands of those neo-imperial contemporary Russian political elites who are determined to win the “memory wars.” The author demonstrates how this attitude towards undesired heritage is a consequence of several historical and political processes.
This chapter further explores how such attitudes and utilisation of “difficult” heritage resulted in the establishment of an officially recognised “hierarchy of heritage significance” infused with privileged types of values. However, while certain kinds of heritage are granted privileged status, due to the denial of mass repression of both people and heritage, they often endure marginalization and misrecognition similar to that suffered by the undesirable ones.
By investigating the aforementioned, the chapter brings two case studies into focus: the former concentration camp of the GULAG system situated within the borders of the nowadays World Heritage property “Cultural and Historic Ensemble of the Solovetsky Islands,” and one of the grandest architectural and technological ensembles of the 1930s—the complex of the Moskva-Volga canal built by forced labourers; with special attention given to how the otherwise privileged heritage is affected by the association even incidental with the undesired one.
