Remembering Katyn

by Alexander Etkind

Katyn– the Soviet massacre of over 21,000 Polish prisoners in 1940 – has come to be remembered as Stalin’s emblematic mass murder, an event obscured by one of the most extensive cover-ups in history. Yet paradoxically, a majority of its victims perished far from the forest in western Russia that gives the tragedy its name. Their remains lie buried in killing fields throughout Russia, Ukraine and, most likely, Belarus. Today their ghosts haunt the cultural landscape of Eastern Europe. This book traces the legacy of Katyn through the interconnected memory cultures of seven Belarus, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and the Baltic States. It explores the meaning of Katyn as site and symbol, event and idea, fact and crypt. It shows how Katyn both incites nationalist sentiments in Eastern Europe and fosters an emerging cosmopolitan memory of Soviet terror. It also examines the strange impact of the 2010 plane crash that claimed the lives of Poland’s leaders en route to Katyn. Drawing on novels and films, debates and controversies, this book makes the case for a transnational study of cultural memory and navigates a contested past in a region that will define Europe’s future.

Genres: Politics, History

Paperback

First published October 8, 2012

About the author

Alexander Etkind (Russian: Александр Эткинд) was born in Leningrad and moved to Cambridge, UK in 2005. He is now is a Professor in Russian Literature and Cultural History and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Alexander has PhD in Psychology from Bekhterev Institute, Leningrad, and another in Slavonic Literatures from the University of Helsinki.

Before coming to the UK, he taught at the European University at St. Petersburg, with which he continues to collaborate. He was a visiting professor at New York University and Georgetown University, and a resident fellow at Harvard, Princeton, the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington D.C., Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, and University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

His research interests are internal colonization in the Russian Empire, comparative studies of cultural memory, and the dynamics of the protest movement in Russia. In 2010-2013, he is directing the European research project, Memory at War: Cultural Dynamics in Poland, Russia, and Ukraine.

Reviews

[Eric Zadravec · Rating 4 out of 5]

Its a good book if you're writing a masters thesis on the Katyn massacre.

[Mark Latchford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a history per se about the Katyn massacres but rather a well written, academically grounded review of the debate about Katyn in Poland, Russia and so on. Reads as an academic thesis, with extensive citations and opinions. The reader is assumed to be already very knowledgeable about the 1940 destruction of the Polish military and intellectual elites and cover-ups. This short (150 pages) book does allow you to sit in the middle of the debate about the role of Katyn in Polish politics and society and also covers the links with the Baltics States, Ukraine etc. A few (badly scanned) photos add to the text. It also covers the 2010 air disaster enroute to the 70th anniversary which wiped out nearly 100 current Polish leaders and how that debacle relates to the original disaster of Katyn. If interested in Eastern Europe, current politics and the history behind current international relations and tensions, this is worth a read. Language a little clunky and professorial but otherwise quite readable.