ASEEES Condemns the Recent Decision by the Russian Supreme Court to shut down the Memorial Society

Published January 13, 2022

The ASEEES Executive Committee condemns the recent decision by the Russian Supreme Court to shut down the Memorial Society, Russia’s most venerable human rights organization.  Since its founding in 1989, Memorial has pursued a dual mission: to document and increase public awareness of mass repression during the Soviet era, and to promote human rights and civil society in contemporary Russia. Its staff has done pioneering research on the arrest, imprisonment, and execution of millions of innocent Soviet citizens, on the extraction of slave labor by Nazi occupiers during the Second World War, and on the history of the Soviet dissident movement. It has amassed priceless expertise on these and other topics along with a unique archive of historical documents that have become an invaluable resource for scholars in Russia and around the world, including members of ASEEES.  We call on the Russian government to restore Memorial’s legal standing as an independent organization dedicated to historical research, education, and advocacy. 

See a related statement made on November 16, 2021.