International conference Necropolis of Communist Terror, organised in cooperation of the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory and Memorial Research and Information Centre (St. Petersburg), will be held on 6.-7. November in Film Museum (Pirita tee 64, Tallinn).
The event is dedicated to the issues of locating, researching, memorialising and legally establishing mass burial sites of victims of state terror in Eastern European and former USSR countries. The conference features researchers from Estonia, Georgia, Belarus, Germany, Kazakhstan, Cambodia, Sweden, Spain, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Slovenia and Ukraine.
The conference programme includes the following topics:
- Overview of practices in different countries regarding the locating, researching, memorialising and legally establishing burial sites of executed victims;
- Documentation of mass executions and accessibility to sources in national and institutional archives;
- Localisation and investigation of burial sites using archaeological methods;
- Mass graves as memorial sites.
The working languages of the conference are Estonian, Russian and English (simultaneous interpretation).
Please RSVP here rsvp@mnemosyne.ee by November 2nd.
Participation is free.
The conference is organised by:
Estonian Institute of Historical Memory (Tallinn, Estonia) www.mnemosyne.ee
Memorial Research and Information Centre / Veniamin Joffe Foundation (St. Petersburg, Russia) http://memorial-nic.org/
Contact: info@mnemosyne.ee
Programme
Wednesday, November 6th. Film Museum, Pirita tee 64, Tallinn.
Country reports on the problems of the necropolis of the communist terror.
| 09:00 | Registration |
| 09:30 | Opening words
Raivo Aeg, Minister of Justice of the Republic of Estonia Meelis Maripuu, Member of Board of the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory Irina Flige, Memorial Research and Information Centre / Director of Veniamin Joffe Foundation (St. Petersburg, Russia) |
| First session: country reports, session led by dr. Meelis Maripuu (Estonian Institute of Historical Memory) | |
| 09:45 | Andres Kahar (Estonia) |
| 10:15 | Irina Flige (Russia) |
| 10:45 | Eugenijus Peikštenis (Lithuania) |
| 11:15 | Coffee break |
| 11:30 | Arnis Āboltiņš (Latvia) |
| 12:00 | Ricardo Ruiz de la Serna (Spain) |
| 12:30 | Boštjan Kolarič (Slovenia) |
| 13:00 | Lunch |
| Second session: country reports. Session led by Dmitri Pritykin (Memorial Research and Information Centre / Veniamin Joffe Foundation, St. Petersburg, Russia) | |
| 14:00 | Kok Chhay Ly (Cambodia) |
| 14:30 | Giorgi Kldiashvili (Georgia) |
| 15:00 | Aigul Omarova (Kazakhstan) |
| 15:30 | Volodymir Birchak (Ukraine) Searching and Identification of burial places of victims of mass repression in Ukraine in 2018-2019 |
| 16:00 | Tomasz Trzaska and Rafal Michlinski (Poland) |
| 16:30 | Coffee break |
| 16:45-18:45 | Screening of a documentary Return of Vanagas. Comments by the researcher Dalius Zigelis |
Thursday, November 7th. Film Museum, Pirita tee 64, Tallinn.
| First session: Archives and research of mass burial sites. Session led by dr. Meelis Saueauk (Estonian Institute of Historical Memory). | |
| 09:00 | Ainars Bambals (Latvia) Documents in the collections of the Latvian National Archives on the Latvian citizens and residents who died in the GULAG camps |
| 09:30 | Volodymir Birchak (Ukraine) Conveyor of death during the Great Terror (1937-1938) in Ukraine: technology of executions, executioners, burial places and archives |
| 10:00 | Jose Luis Orella Martínez (Spain) Memorialising religious persecution during the II Spanish Republic (1931-1939) and the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939): The Brotherhood and cemetery of Paracuellos del Jarama killing site |
| 10:30 | Irina Flige (Russia) Registering of deaths and documentation of burials |
| 11:00 | Coffee break |
| Second session: problems of locating and archeology of mass graves. Session led by dr. Mati Mandel (Estonian History Museum). | |
| 11:15 | Arnold Unt (Estonia) Soviet State Security secret Mass Graves of the Forest Brothers |
| 11:45 | Igor Chetverikov (Russia) Experience of the archeological research of the mass burial sites of the political repression 1937-1938 (based on the materials of the Tiraspol excavations) |
| 12:15 | Olgierd Ławrynowicz (Poland) Searching for the burial place of Captain Stanisław Sojczyński in Lodz |
| 12:45 | Mikhail Zhukovskiy (Russia) Localisation and mapping of mass burial sites with archeological methods |
| 13:15 | Lunch |
| 14:15 | Visit to the Memorial to the Victims of Communism |
| 16:00 | Coffee break |
| Third session: Commemoration of mass burial sites . Session led by Irina Flige (Memorial Research and Information Centre / Veniamin Joffe Foundation (St. Petersburg, Russia) | |
| 16:15 | Meelis Maripuu (Estonia) Sources and methodology of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism database |
| 16:45 | Irina Romanova (Belarus) Memorial sites of the victims of Stalinist terror in Belarus |
| 17:15 | Tomas Sniegon (Sweden) Making “Patriotic” Sense of the Gulag in Present-Day Russia |
| 17:45 | International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. Linda Norris |
| 18:15-18.30 | Closing remarks |
Please note this programme is subject to change.
