The article is concerned with the discovery of the author–compiler of the series “Избранные стихи русских поэтов” (Selected Poems by Russian Poets, 1914), compiled by the revolutionary terrorist Ksenia Pamfilova (1881–1957), a member of the Combat Organization of the Socialist Revolutionaries (nickname Irina), the wife of the famous Russian revolutionary Lev Zilberberg who was executed in 1907. After the provocateur Azef ’s denunciation and arresting group, which Pamfilova belonged to, she managed to slip out of the police hands and flee to the West. When she settled in Italy (Cavi di Lavagna), she prepared this collection with her comrades in arms, the “group of compilers” (most likely Boris Savinkov, Andrey Sobol and others). It was published in the capital of Russia (Mikhail Stasyulevych’s printing-house).

Aurelia Kotkiewicz’s article is devoted to the tragic story of Carola Neher’s life. Carola Neher was an extraordinary German actress and a close associate of Bertolt Brecht. In the 1930s, she escaped from the Nazi regime to the Soviet Union, there to become one of the victims of the Great Terror. The fate of Carola Neher was the inspiration for an exhibition put up by the International Memorial Society in 2017 called “Carola Neher’s Theater of Life” and for the theatrical spectacle Memoria, staged by the Меyerhold Center in Moscow and directed by Anastasia Patlai.

In his article, Andrzej Polak analyzes Konstantin Paustovsky’s short story Kara-Bugaz in terms of the presence of elements of socialist-realist aesthetics (its sub-genre called the production novel) and devices typical of colonial narratives. The story is an example of a combination of these seemingly completely different ideologies. The story refers directly to the slogans accompanying the state industrialization program, which was the main goal of the first Soviet five-year plan. Konstantin Paustovsky’s goal is not so much to recreate the technological process of work, but to show its sense, i.e., its bing aimed at shaping the welfare of humanity and thereby transforming the world. The Soviet power on the territory of Central Asia was presented as a guarantor of progress and civilization, bringing to the local population a betterment of the standard of living, education and the possibility of a multi-faceted development. Thus, its representatives do not act as ordinary colonizers, but as guardians who care about the prosperity of the lands that are part of the Soviet empire.

Grzegorz Ojcewicz’s article offers an analysis of a unique, meticulous report created by a teenager during his train journey from Moscow to Tashkent (30 Oct — 18 Nov 1941). In his Diaries, the son of Marina Tsvetaeva, during his evacuation from the capital city to Central Asia, reports everything he witnesses and provides
his quick-witted commentary upon it. The 16-year-old Mur reveals — to himself and to the reader — his true motives behind the difficult decision to leave Moscow: his deep desire to reach Ashgabat and meet his only friend, Dmitry Sezeman there, as the two had had a fair share of experiences together during their stay
in Paris. A series of long stops in the middle of nowhere or at rundown Soviet train stations provide the young man with numerous observations on the nature of Russia and the Russian people. This ego-document serves as a valuable historical resource not only on the life of Efron himself, but on the evacuation conditions of ordinary citizens of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War as well.

In the figurative system of Demidov’s story, one of the key roles is played by armed guards, leading prisoners who barely move their legs to hard work. In the story one may find the names of famous historical and literary characters from different eras and people: Laue, Einstein, Balya and Cauchy, Hamlet and Horatio, Pushkin and Salieri. The drawn historical and spatial parallels do not look random. The authoritarian form of government and the monopoly of a few people to think for everyone, reminds the narrator of one-person dictatorships waging war with the intelligentsia.

The tragic history of the first half of the 20th century is receding into annals of history there are hardly any surviving witnesses. However, practices of commemoration and collective memory are still there. Aleksandr Bushev looks at practices of public commemoration of collective consciousness related to the traumatic events in the history of the 20th century. The article focuses on modern documentary theatre concerned with repressions, media coverage of deconstruction of memorial plaques on the former building of Kalinin NKVD, the attempts to rebrand the Mednoye Museum, the struggle against the falsification of military history undertaken by Tver historian Svetlana Gerasimova, and the creation of a Soviet soldier memorial in Rzhev. Bushev’s goal is make us reflect on the images of memory in the consciousness of our contemporaries, on the ways in which this memory can be penetrated via creative and journalistic texts, and on attempts to erase this memory.

The article deals with memoir texts written by the members of a religious minority group repressed by the Soviet Union authorities. The author of the article pays significant attention to the specifics of the texts, the motives for recording the stories, and the subject of the memoirs themselves. Most often, the authors of the memoir texts reported on the course of exile to Siberia, difficult living conditions and constant overwork. They talked about being in labour camps, beatings, surveillance and other forms of repression. In addition to the analysis of selected issues, the author of the article discussed also the texts under analysis role. These written texts are not only crucial historic documents that tell about past events. They are the testimonies of those events victims. They are an element of cultural practice and, among other things, are aimed to create a sense of community, reveal the values which dominate within the group and to promote certain behaviour codes which include maintaining loyalty to beliefs and totalitarianism.

In this article Piotr Wąsala’s aim is to describe the phenomenon of the latest Russian women’s cinema against a significant change that started at the beginning of the second decade of 21st century, i.e., a significant increase in thenumber of women directors. The phenomenon is characterised by a diversity in movie themes and forms of expressions. Wąsala focuses on numerous aspects that have an impact on directors’ works, in particular setting the film plan in the backwoods, the pursuit of authenticity (for example in dialogues), self-sufficiency and the directors themselves, who are regarded as auteurs. Finally, Wąsala analyses a selection of films representative of this phenomenon by focusing on the main themes such as the representation of human individuals, their identity, intimacy and connection with nature.

The paper concerns the documentary Welcome to Chechnya (2020), made in response to the mass purge of gay men and women that started in the Chechen Republic in 2017. The main aim of this paper is to highlight the problem of LGBTQIA+ society in Russia and Chechnya and give a voice to the victims of discriminated minorities. In the face of the war in Ukraine, it seems more important than ever. It is done through presenting the legal situation of LGBTQIA+ in both countries, explaining possible causes of the lack of acceptance of homosexuality in Russia and Chechnya, clarifying the Kremlin’s point of view in the domain of homosexuality and explicating the reason for which artificial intelligence (AI) is used in the documentary.

The article discusses and critically analyzes, and evaluates the scientific publication by Ewa Komisaruk entitled The Blockade of Leningrad in the Experience and Diarist Narratives of Women (Olga Bergholz, Lyubov Shaporina, Sofia Ostrovskaya) published in Breslau in 2021. Both the substantive and formal aspects of the monograph were analyzed.

A story by Elena Makarova – writer, journalist, educator, art therapist, exhibition curator, member of the International PEN Club - who left the USSR in 1990, moving to Israel, where she still lives today. In a brilliant, subversive manner based on personal experience, Makarova reveals the behind-the-scenes of Soviet society's (not)coping on a micro level with the sudden change in narrative, the crisis of values, the absurdities and the rapid political, social and cultural changes of the perestroika period following the era of stagnation. And all this is exemplified by Khimki - a gated city in the Moscow region – representing the model of the state in miniature.