Damnatio Memoriae, 2024

Damnatio Memoriae is a modern Latin phrase meaning “damnation of memory”, which implies a person(s) is to going to be excluded from official accounts of events (photographs, film, transcripts, literature etc.). I bought these Soviet era photographs through a contact in Russia; their exact origin is unknown. Censorship within the Soviet Union was widespread throughout its existence, particularly during the political purges of Joseph Stalin. Stalin famously had photographs “retouched” to remove persons from reproductions of the image. The Soviet government operated on the premise that the official narrative is important, but the truth is not. Censorship was managed by three primary organisations; Goskomizdat (Printed media: fiction, poetry, literature etc.), Goskino (cinema), Gosteleradio (radio and television broadcasting). Stalin died in 1953, and after a brief struggle for power between Georgy Malenkov and Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev became the successive leader of the Soviet Union, later denouncing Stalin in his “secret speech” ‘On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences’ and thereafter embarked on a policy of “De-Stalinization” throughout the Soviet Union. Despite Khruschev’s ‘relaxed’ policies, the government continued to persecute writers and dissidents. The continued use of police terror campaigns against the public led to the economic decline, inefficiency and apathy that plagued the Soviet Union through the 70-80s, eventually leading to the Chernobyl Disaster in 1986. This event sealed the Soviet Unions fate. In 1991, after 71 years of existence, the Soviet Union crumbled.