Katyn Materski, Wojciech; Cienciala, Anna M; Lebedeva, Natalia S
01/2008
eBook
The 14,500 Polish army officers, police, gendarmes, and civilians taken prisoner by the Red Army when it invaded eastern Poland in September 1939 were held in three special NKVD camps and executed at ...three different sites in spring 1940, of which the one in Katyn Forest is the most famous. Another 7,300 prisoners held in NKVD jails in Ukraine and Belarus were also shot at this time, although many others disappeared without trace. The murder of these Poles is among the most monstrous mass murders undertaken by any modern government.
Three leading historians of the NKVD massacres of Polish prisoners of war at Katyn, Kharkov, and Tver-now subsumed under "Katyn"-present 122 documents selected from the published Russian and Polish volumes coedited by Natalia S. Lebedeva and Wojciech Materski. The documents, with introductions and notes by Anna M. Cienciala, detail the Soviet killings, the elaborate cover-up, the admission of the truth, and the Katyn question in Soviet/Russian-Polish relations up to the present.
The Soviet massacre of Polish prisoners of war at Katyn and in other camps in 1940 was one of the most notorious incidents of the Second World War. The truth about the massacres was long suppressed, ...both by the Soviet Union, and also by the United States and Britain who wished to hold together their wartime alliance with the Soviet Union.
This informative book examines the details of this often overlooked event, shedding light on what took place especially in relation to the massacres at locations other than Katyn itself. It discusses how the truth about the killings was hidden, how it gradually came to light and why the memory of the massacres has long affected Polish-Russian relations.
George Sanford is a reader in politics Bristol University and a leading academic specialist on Poland and Eastern Europe. He is the author of ten books, including most recently the Historical Dictionary of Poland (2003), Democratic Government in Poland (2002) and Poland: The Conquest of History (1999).
'This study is the fullest investigation to date of this atrocity...It is based on considerable research in various archives and is written dispassionately and objectively and is thereby all the more moving.' - Contemporary Review
List of tables Preface Introduction Acknowledgements List of abbreviations 1. Poland and Russia 2. The Sovietisation of East Poland 3. The Stalinist Terror and Prisoner of War System 4. The Indoctrination, Screening/Investigation and Selection 5. Course, Mechanisms and Technology of the Massacre 6. The Struggle for Historical Truth 7. Management and Control of the Truth about the 1940 Massacre: American-British lies, hypocrisy and self-delusion 8. Soviet and Polish Communist Control of the Truth about Katyn: The conflict with national memory 9. Closure of the 1940 Soviet Massacre Issue Bibliography Index
The article focuses on the Leningrad trials of Nazi war criminals (December 27, 1945 – January 6, 1946). Based on a wide range of sources, some of which are being introduced into scientific ...circulation for the first time, the political functions of the Leningrad trials are identified, and forms of their mediatization are determined. The Leningrad trials were supposed not only to sentence 11 specific criminals but also to condemn the occupation system in the region (the North-West of RSFSR) per se. The punitive actions of 1943–44 were most thoroughly investigated. However, the investigation could not or did not have enough time to identify those guilty of the Siege of Leningrad and the perpetrators of war crimes of 1941–42, including the Holocaust. The war crimes of Finnish and Spanish units in the territory of Leningrad Oblast and the participation of collaborators in those crimes were not investigated. Instead of these important issues, during the Leningrad trials the authorities chose to present false testimony of Private A. Düre about the Nazis’ guilt of the Katyn massacre (the testimony had neither political nor juridical effect). The Leningrad trials did not fully fulfil their political functions and escaped the culture of memory (among other reasons, due to selective mediatisation).
This article analyzes a German propaganda brochure, entitled “Massacre in the Katyn Forest. Fact-based Report,” edited in 1943 by the Central Nationalist-Socialist Publishing House of the German ...Workers Party.” The aim of the analysis is to determine whether the brochure follows propaganda guidelines defined by the Ministry of National Enlightenment and Reich Propaganda (PROMI), with particular attention paid to the manner of presentation and use of the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest where Polish officers and Soviet prisoners, imprisoned in the Starobielsk camp, were murdered and buried by the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKWD). The analysis is set in a historical context. It focuses on the themes and language of the brochure. It finds that the brochure shows all the qualities of a propaganda text typical of PROMI. The analyzed parts of the brochure were translated into Polish.
The aim of the article is to show how in contemporary Russian history textbooks the Katyn Massacre (1940) is presented and compare its interpretation with different approaches to this tragedy that ...are actively discussed in scientific circles and among ordinary Russians. This approach should answer the question of the place occupied by this sensitive issue in Russian politics of memory and show how the process of forming historical memory related to the Katyn Massacre, based on historical education in schools, and public policy, looks like. Civic education in Russia is based on patriotic values and shapes the pride of power of the motherland. By emphasizing the importance of war victories, strong leaders, the formation of the students’ sense of belonging to the Russian nation and loyalty to the state takes place. The Katyn case continues to be a painful theme in Russian interpretation of the past, which explains why attempts are made to justify the crimes of the Stalinist regime. It is also not useful for patriotic education, as evidenced by the lack of mention of it in some history textbooks, or attempts to justify it partially.
Information:
Agnieszka Morstin examines Andrzej Wajda's film ”Katyń”, dividing the lecture into three parts: in the first, she talks about the film and how personal it was for the director, in the ...second, she refers to its romantic motifs, and especially to the romantic vision of the nation, which Wajda's film presents, in the third – about the music by Krzysztof Penderecki, donated by the composer for this film. She claims that the film was among the most difficult directing jobs for Wajda due to the fact that his father had been killed in Katyn. Therefore, it is not a historical film or one about settling accounts, but rather about emotions, mourning, an autobiographical film.
Original language summary: Agnieszka Morstin omawia film Andrzeja Wajdy ”Katyń” dzieląc wykład na trzy części: w pierwszej mówi o tym filmie jako osobistym dla reżysera, w drugiej odnosi się do motywów romantycznych, a zwłaszcza do romantycznej wizji narodu, jaką film Wajdy proponuje, w trzeciej - o muzyce Krzysztofa Pendereckiego, ofiarowanej przez kompozytora do tego filmu. Twierdzi, że dla Wajdy ten film był jednym z najtrudniejszych zadań reżyserskich ze względu na fakt, że jego ojciec zginął w Katyniu. Nie jest to zatem kino historyczne czy rozrachunkowe, ale kino emocji, autobiograficzne, żałobne.
PDF
