Family History in Russia - Regaining the Past

For 70 years, many people in Russia tried to forget the dark sides of their history. They celebrate Russia's victory over Hitler Germany in World War II very often without commemorating all the victims, without commemorating those, who were deported under Stalin's rule, who were imprisoned in Gulags or forced to do hard labor far away from their home. The International MEMORIAL society from Moscow wants to regain all of history with its glorious episodes and its dark sides. Therefore, every year it organizes a history competition for students. For more than fifteen years, this competition has been a member of the EUSTORY Network (Hyperlink www.eustory.eu) that was initiated by the Körber Foundation in 2001. Andrey Kozyrev is one of the prizewinners of this year´s MEMORIAL history competition on the topic “Man in History – Russia in the 20th century”. He traced the history of his family back over the past 100 years. And found stories, photos and documents that seemed long forgotten.