Stavniuk Iryna

The National Database of the Victims of Political Repressions: Problems of Forming and Using

Section: Historiographical and sources of research

Abstract: The purpose of the survey – to trace the process of forming the national database of the victims of the political repressions of the Soviet era. System approach became the methodological basis of the social and political phenomena research. This approach is based on the principles of scientific accordance, historicism and objectivity. The author has also used some general scientific and special history methods. Here are some of them – statistical-analytical, comparative-historical, problem-chronological methods. A prerequisite for the use of statistical methods in the study was the determination the nature of the studied phenomenon. After the Soviet Union declined, the urgent need to disclose the analytical and statistical data of the repressions appeared. On the background of the Soviet system ruining, different social group’s ad civil society leaders demanded the concrete information on the amount of the repression’s victims, their social, national, gender and other features. So, the article highlights the process of the discussion the methodology and key features of the national database of the repression victims. The reasons for the data reducing/shortening in biograms, published in the series of the scientific and documentary books «Rehabilitated by the History». The formation of a national database of victims of political repressions of the Soviet era has become one of the instruments of accounting, scientific and statistical processing of information about repressed citizens and their memorialization. Online access to the e-database allows to search and publish information about the life and fate of the people, who were repressed by the Communist regime. The database is open and accessible, so it makes possible to inform people about the crimes of the Soviet leaders and their fellows in arms from the Communist party. In addition, there is the possibility of correcting and updating the data in case of revealing new identity documents or refinement of information by relatives of repressed citizens. The author came to conclusion, that all attempts to create the general united e-database of the repressed USSR citizens on the post-Soviet space in early 2000th came across the obstacles of methodological, linguistic and political matter. Nevertheless, most of the problems were compromised on. But the lack of the real access to the criminal archive files of the territory of the Russian Federation, the objection of the representatives of the Russian authorities regarding the publication of the names of investigators of state security, limits the possibilities of this interstate project. Stereotypes imposed by the Soviet historiography on the rehabilitation of participants in national liberation movements in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic States also became an obstacle to the establishing of an intergovernmental united database.

Keywords: database, repressed citizens, Soviet era repressions, rehabilitation, ''Rehabilitated by the History''.

  Full-text PDF    https://doi.org/10.15407/vuchk2018.01.259     Citation

• Stavniuk Iryna (Institute of the History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, irynastavniuk@gmail.com)

Cite:
Stavniuk Iryna (2018). The National Database of the Victims of Political Repressions: Problems of Forming and Using. From archives of VUChK–GPU–NKVD–KGB, ( 1 (49)) 259-277. (In Ukrainian). doi: https://doi.org/10.15407/vuchk2018.01.259

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