Δευτέρα 4 Μαΐου 2015



Dimitris Baltas, Martyrologium. Writers and Artists in the Soviet Era, Enallaktikes Ekdoseis, Athens 2014, p. 136 (in Greek)

This ‘’Martyrologium’’ of writers and artists who suffered persecution, torture, exile and were either executed or committed suicide, or were even sentenced to oblivion, mainly during the years of Stalinism as well as during the ones of Leninism, is indicative of the spirit of an era, a society of a particular ideological practice.
Many writers and artists were killed, while those who escaped execution were exiled or remained in silence. Especially some of them, due to the fact that they did not withstand the conditions of repression imposed by the regime, were driven to committing suicide. All these writers and artists, to whom this study is dedicated, are ‘’martyrs’’ of the freedom of thought, speech and criticism.
It has already been clarified that both Lenin’s as well as the successive Stalin’s era were hostile towards both literature and art, that is towards the review presentation of course not towards the solution) on behalf of the writers, through the images, of the problems of the soviet society and of the morals that characterized it.
It goes without saying that they are not the only ones suffered under the soviet regime. The Russian Church also endeavours to list the ‘’martyrs’’ of religious faith. In the same way national communities or private bodies are interested, and many times are in agony, in discovering today the graves of ordinary people, the date of their death or the execution manner. Unfortunately this is not always easy, just like in the case of the names of the writers and the artists included in the present study. It is also a fact that ‘’a big amount of truth concerning the past remains hidden in sealed archives’’.
In any case, what is left is the preservation of the historical remembrance of the sacrifice of millions of people in the altar of an ideology or more accurately, of a felony practice coated by an ideological cloak. Regarding the issue, A. Solzhenitsyn’s approach is most accurate: ‘’Ideology – that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad on his own and others' eyes so that he won’t have to face reproaches and curses but praise and eulogy’’.