On December 28, 2021, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ruled to liquidate the international historical, educational, charitable and human rights society Memorial (Recognized as a foreign agent in Russia).
The society was founded on January 28, 1989 on the initiative of Academician A.D. Sakharova, The main task of "Memorial" was originally to study political repressions in the USSR.
I was lucky (being at that time the leader of the Faculty of History of the Ural State University) to stand at the origins of the creation of the society and make a feasible contribution to its development.
The co-chairman of the Sverdlovsk branch of "Memorial" was Ivan Tsezarevich Tsalkovsky, a lecturer in the Department of the History of the CPSU. The figure is historical, large-scale. somehow even unique. Ivan Tsesarevich was awarded, while still a student, the Order of the Badge of Honor for organizing the first construction teams of detachments at the Ural State University (Sverdlovsk).
A man of the most powerful intellect and a broad soul, everyone loved him (especially students, he lectured like a "Cheshire cat"). Blessed memory, died of a heart attack in 1991. The big heart could not withstand the overload.
Since at that time I headed the Komsomol organization of the history department of the Ural State University, there was no question of supporting Ivan Tsarevich in every possible way (I remind you that I myself am the grandson of the repressed, my grandfather was shot in Smolensk as an enemy of the people, and my father (then a month old baby) with my grandmother were exiled to the Urals with a complete loss of rights.How they survived and survived is a separate topic, and not one post.
In addition, in March 1990, I headed the youth wing of the elective headquarters of Ivan Tsarevich, a candidate for people's deputies of the RSFSR.
Well, the fact that "Memorial" was closed is logical for the current government. We close "Memorial" - we open "GULAG". Masks of Sorrow" by the Unknown, (by the way, when he was the director of the school literary and local history museum, he knew his mother, the Sverdlovsk poetess Bella Dizhur, visited her house on Azina Street more than once (there are now memorial plaques dedicated to her and the Unknown ), gave me tea and treated me with "buns"), apparently they will soon be demolished and put in their place ... (further on fantasy).
