On August 5, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Ukraine honored the memory of the victims of the Great Terror – mass political repressions of 1937-1938 – calling on Russia to open archives and declassify the truth about the crimes of the Soviet past.
The MFA noted that the starting point of the Great Terror is considered to be the date of entry into force of People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) Order No. 00447 of July 30, 1937, which launched the execution of the decree of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of July 2, 1937, "On anti-Soviet elements."
Following this, the communist regime introduced execution quotas and extrajudicial bodies – so-called "troikas" – for the destruction of "anti-Soviet elements." They were divided into two categories: the first provided for immediate execution, the second – imprisonment in the GULAG camps of the NKVD of the USSR.
"It is impossible to remember all the tortured by name – they are beyond number," according to a comment by the MFA of Ukraine published on the agency’s website.
The ministry emphasized that for Ukraine, which included the Moldavian Autonomous Republic, the quota under the first category was set at 26,150 people, and in 1938 it was increased to 83,122.
"It is known that the largest mass burial sites of Ukrainians remain the Bykivnia Graves near Kyiv, where the names of over 20,000 executed people have been established, and the Sandarmokh tract in Karelia, where out of 9,500 people shot over 9 days in the autumn of 1937, about 300 are connected to Ukraine. Among them are prominent figures of culture, educators, medical workers, priests, agronomists, as well as officers, government officials, and diplomats of the UNR who made a notable contribution to its state-building and establishment on the international arena, including leaders of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the UNR," the MFA informs.
The agency recalled representatives of the Ukrainian "Executed Renaissance" whose lives were taken by Soviet repressions: poet and literary scholar Mykola Zerov, writer Valeryan Pidmohylny, poet Mykhaylo Semenko, writer Maik Yohansen, playwright Mykola Kulish, poet Marko Vorony, writer Hryhoriy Epyk, director Les Kurbas, artists Mykhailo Boichuk, Vasyl Sedlyar, and Sofiya Nalepinska-Boichuk.
"The terror was aimed at intimidating and erasing all these people from the memory of our nation, silencing their voices, cutting short not only their lives, but also their influence on the formation of Ukrainian identity," the MFA noted.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized that the Great Terror failed to destroy the memory of its victims, and their legacy continues to remain part of the Ukrainian struggle for freedom.
The agency also called on Russia to end the persecution of researchers of Stalinist repressions, in particular to release Russian historian Yuriy Dmitriyev, who, according to the MFA, revealed the horrors of Sandarmokh to the world and is currently behind bars on fabricated charges.
"On this day, we reiterate the demand for Russia to open archives and declassify the truth about the crimes of the Soviet past, in particular about the atrocities of the Great Terror times. The names of the executioners and victims must be known. We demand an end to the persecution of researchers of Stalinist repressions. In particular, we demand freedom for Russian historian Yuriy Dmitriyev, who revealed the horrors of Sandarmokh to the world, and is now behind bars on fabricated charges," the agency urged.
