Museums of Leningrad as the Agents of Memory of Stalinist Political Repressions’ Victims during the Years of Perestroika

Museums create and broadcast the memory, and through exhibitions interpret the past, being agents of memory. With the help of clerical materials and interviews with museum workers from the Anna Akhmatova Museum and the Museum of the Great October Social Revolution, this study explores how the memory of Stalinist repressions’ victims was represented in these two museums in Leningrad during the perestroika. Museums themselves interpreted events of the past, and the initiative in this case came “from below”, from the museum staff, which indicates the transition of the role of interpreting the past from the state to the social institutions, which was associated with the liberalization and democratization of society. Also, at the first expositions about the victims of repressions was laid one of the ways to overcome the traumatic event of the past. The research shows, how differently museum worked with this past through the exhibitions.