Thread by @CodaStory

The Gulag was one of the darkest chapters in Russia’s past. The Russian government is airbrushing it away.

We set out to find as many living survivors as we could. They told us their stories, some for the first time. They are Generation Gulag.
codastory.com/series/generat…

Stalin, who sent millions to Gulag camps, has never been more popular in Russia. 70% of Russians say they approve of his legacy.

This is the result of a Kremlin campaign, spearheaded by Vladimir Putin, to rewrite Soviet history.

The Generation Gulag project started with a conversation between Coda journalists @antelava & @katia_patin. They wanted to hear from the eyewitnesses of Soviet authoritarianism about what it’s like to see their past being rewritten.
codastory.com/disinformation…

In Russia, authorities have imprisoned prominent Gulag historians and forced Gulag museums to register as “foreign agents.” Last year in southern Russia, police officers dressed up in KGB uniforms — in celebration of the Soviet “heroes” who rounded up millions of Russians.

Almost half of young Russians say they have never heard of the Stalin-era purges, known as the Great Terror.

Olga Shirokaya’s father was arrested and executed at the height of the purge in 1938. In a second wave of mass arrests, Olga was sent to a camp in 1950:

Olga’s Shirokaya was a child when Stalin’s purges reached a fever-pitch. It was 1938. Her father was arrested and executed. Twelve years later, Olga, now a young woman, was sent to the camps herself. The KGB accused her of “self-indoctrination.”

As an infant, ballet dancer Azari Plesetsky was sent to a special Gulag camp for the wives and children of Stalin’s “enemies of the people.”

“The most unpleasant and shameful part is that many people today try to forget about these wounds and not reopen them. But we must reopen them,” Azari Plesetsky told our journalist @oksanabaulina

Russian authorities aren’t invested in coming to terms with the horror of the Gulag. Instead, “they want it to become part of the tapestry of the past that has no special significance, no special meaning and no special lessons,” said author @anneapplebaum

Distorting the past is serving regimes around the world. As part of our disinformation coverage, we’re tracking how governments do it.

Here, @isocockerell looks at how China tried to re-engineer the history of Muslims in the country.

codastory.com/disinformation…

In the next few weeks, we will share the stories and the messages Gulag survivors have for us about our era.

But we don’t want to stop here. Share your own family’s story from the Gulag using the hashtag #GenerationGulag

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