Excerpt from Irina Flige’s book Sandarmokh. The Dramaturgy of Meaning, Warsaw 2023, translated by Robert Szczęsny, published by the Juliusz Mieroszewski Centre for Dialogue and the Polish Institute in St. Petersburg.”
Sandarmokh: Polish Presence
(…) The Polish cross — as the Catholic cross is often referred to in Russia — appeared in Sandarmokh as one of the very first, on the very same day the Memorial Cemetery for the Victims of Terror was officially opened. From the moment of the burial site’s discovery to the official cemetery opening, less than four months had passed. Taking into account the short time span, only those who were truly determined to be ready on time were able to make it on that very important day — the sixtieth anniversary of the Great Terror.
In 1997, already known with complete certainty were the names and personal details of some of those executed — 1,111 souls from the so-called Solovetsky transport. These individuals, held in the Solovki Special Purpose Prison (SPN), had been sentenced to death by shooting, by the “troika” of the Leningrad NKVD Directorate. They were transported from the Solovetsky Islands, before being eliminated in the vicinity of Medvezhyegorsk. The remaining names had yet to be officially established.
Thus, in 1997, the materialization of memory of Sandarmokh referred only to the Solovetsky list, which included 28 people listed in the camp documentation as “Pole” or “Polish woman.” When one also takes into account those born in Poland, the list may be expanded to around 50 people whose lives were in some way connected with Poland (of course, all were Soviet citizens and had wound up in the camp not for ethnic reasons but due to Soviet system’s general mechanisms of repression).
And hence, when on 27 October 1997, the Memorial Cemetery for the Victims of Terror was unveiled at Sandarmokh — on the sixtieth anniversary of the start of the mass shootings of the “Solovetsky transport” (the executions had lasted for several days) — one of the very first monuments erected there, was a three-meter-high Catholic cross. Beneath the cross, a commemorative granite plaque was mounted, with an inscription in Polish and Russian: “On the 60th anniversary / To the Solovetsky prisoners – Poles / and priests who found eternal / peace on this land / Compatriots.”/„К 60-летию / Соловецким узникам-Полякам / и священникам, которые нашли место / вечного покоя на этой земле / 27.10.1997 г. Соотечественники”.
The Initiator of the Cross
The initiator of the erection of the cross was Father Krzysztof Pożarski, parish priest of St. Stanislaus Church in Saint Petersburg (he would be later responsible in 2010 for the erection of another cross — dedicated “To the Catholics of the USSR – bishops, priests, monks, nuns, and laypeople of all rites and nationalities – victims of political repression” — at the Levashovo Memorial Cemetery for the Victims of Political Repression in Saint Petersburg).
At the unveiling ceremony and consecration of the Sandarmokh cross, Catholic clergy from Saint Petersburg and Petrozavodsk (the capital of Karelia) were in attendance alongside Father Krzysztof: Fathers Bernardo Antonini, Andrzej Steckiewicz, Bronisław Czaplicki, and Celestyn Dierunow. The ceremony was also attended by a delegation from the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Saint Petersburg, headed by Consul General Jerzy Skotarek, as well as Catholics from both St.Petersburg and Petrozavodsk.
It is noteworthy that the monument is dedicated to “the Solovetsky prisoners – Poles and priests” (implicitly Catholic). Among the 23 Catholic priests of the Solovetsky transport shot to death at Sandarmokh, only four were of Polish origin: Fr. Józef Dziemian, Fr. Jan Łukacz, Fr. Józef Karpiński, and Fr. Józef Kowalski. The others hailed from the Volga German Republic (nine in total, led by Prelate Piotr Weigel, sent by the Vatican in 1930 to investigate reports of persecution of Catholics in the Volga region), or they were Eastern-rite Catholics without direct links to Poland.
By erecting the cross, Father Krzysztof had the clear intention to commemorate all 23 priests, regardless of their ethnic origins. The inscription should therefore be interpreted as referring both to the Solovetsky prisoners of Polish origin and to the Catholic priests. In this way, the first sign of Polish memorialization at Sandarmokh reflected both ethnic and confessional identity. Visitors to Sandarmokh and participants in the annual Days of Remembrance do tend to regard this cross as a Polish monument.
On 16 July 2007, a student expedition named “In the Footsteps of the Martyrs of the Faith” paid a visit to the cemetery. The group was made up of students from the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków, led by Fr. Dr. Andrzej Muszala, professor of bioethics. At the stone base of the large cross they placed another, smaller Catholic cross, 60 cm high (designed by Paweł Jan Kusz). Underneath the arms of the cross, a metal plaque is visible, which bears the Polish inscription:
“In memory of Poles / – victims of the communist system – / who perished here, / as they did in all / corners of Soviet Russia / Students from Poland – July 2007.”
The cross was produced in Poland and consecrated in Russia. Later that month, Sergey Koltyrin, director of the Medvezhyegorsk Museum, reinforced the base of the smaller cross with a screed of cement.
Erecting a second cross as a complement to the first, may be explained as an extension of the Polish tradition of taking care of graves into the sphere of collective remembrance (painting fences, planting flowers, adding new memorial elements). It is equally important however to direct one’s attention to the wording of the plaque — “in memory of the victims of the communist system” — and the epitaph’s signature — “Students from Poland.”
The message that it conveys should I believe, be understood in the following way: in Poland, a new generation of those who “remember” expresses its “own” memory not only of the citizens of their country who fell victim to terror, but of all Poles who suffered under the communist system — including those who counted themselves as citizens of the USSR. This represents a significant new development in commemorative practice, one which is seemingly connected to a broadening of general knowledge about the nature of the Great Terror – which up to that point in time, was a phenomenon that had already undergone thorough research by Russian and international historians, particularly with respect to the NKVD’s “national operations” of 1937–1938, including the “Polish Operation” executed on the basis of the Operational Order No. 00485.
Until the mid-2000s, the main emphasis of Polish national memory was placed primarily on those crimes perpetrated solely against Polish citizens. Over many decades, for Poles, the name ‘Katyn’ had been the primary symbol synonymous with those crimes. Mainstream remembrance also tended to highlight the deportations of 1940–1941, which were preserved in the public consciousness by way of the activities of Sybirak (Siberian exile) associations, located in various cities across Poland. After all, the victims of these deportations had been, in the main, Polish citizens living at that time in territories annexed by the USSR.
Hence the 2007 inscription on the small cross, embracing all Poles in the Polish national memory, regardless of their citizenship —as in the same way, the inscription on the large cross pays respect to all Catholics, no matter their nationality.
Of significant weight here is also the fact that the perpetrator of the crimes is explicitly mentioned – “the communist system.” This is highly unconventional when taking into account Russian monuments dedicated to victims of terror, where inscriptions rarely even mention the crimes themselves, let alone their perpetrators. As a rule, the victims remain the sole focus of such monuments.
It then also happened that in 2007, Jarosław Drozd, Consul General of the Republic of Poland in Saint Petersburg, put forward the idea of erecting a monument at the Memorial Cemetery to mark the 70th anniversary of the Great Terror — a monument which would be dedicated to “Poles – victims of Stalinist repression.” The initiative received the firm backing of the National-Cultural Autonomy of Poles of Karelia “Karelska Polonia” in Petrozavodsk, led by Natalia Kopecka and Valery Mikhaylov.
Today it has been established that among those 6,241 Soviet citizens shot to death at Sandarmokh between 1937 and 1938, at least 260 individuals had ties to Poland. Their memory has been honoured with the erecting of the stele at the Memorial Cemetery in 2007.
The design and construction of the monument itself was performed by the “Elit-Kamień” company based in Petrozavodsk, and funded by the “Wspólnota Polska” Association in Warsaw. The monument, made of polished black gabbro, takes the form of a stele engraved with a Catholic cross engraved in the centre. To the left of the cross is the Polish inscription:
“In memory of the Poles / innocent victims / of Stalinist / repressions”
and to the right, the same text in is found in Russian:
“Памяти поляков / невинных жертв / сталинских / репрессий”
The monument was completed in June 2007, with its installation and unveiling initially planned for 5 August, during the Days of Remembrance at Sandarmokh marking the 70th anniversary of the onset of large scale operation that constituted the Great Terror. The 2007 Days of Remembrance at Sandarmokh were in fact the only memorial events in Russia with any kind of international character.
However, due to diplomatic tensions, the installation of the already completed monument was postponed until the autumn. This diplomatic unease had arisen from the anticipated visit to Sandarmokh by the Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. After the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had declined to grant permission for his visit, Yushchenko failed to attend — as a result, the diplomatic cracks lingered. Consequently, as a precautionary measure, the Karelia authorities delayed the granting of approval for the Polish monument.
It was eventually erected on 26 October 2007, however without any formal ceremonial fanfare. The official unveiling eventually took place the following year, on 5 August 2008, during the subsequent Days of Remembrance, and was performed by Consul General Jarosław Drozd and Vice-Consul Anna Dembowska.
And that is how the two Polish focal points of commemoration came into existence at the Memorial Cemetery in Sandarmokh:
– the high Catholic cross from 1997, and
– the “Commemmoration of Poles” stele from 2007, positioned some 15 meters away from the larger cross.
Renewal and Transformation of the Memorial Sites
Five years later, in June 2015, a form of renewal and reorganization of the memorial symbols occurred between those two Polish remembrance locations at Sandarmokh. Father Mikhail Tsymlakov of the Catholic parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Petrozavodsk, along with his parishioners, laid a figure of the Savior on the large Catholic cross and, at its base, unveiled an additional plaque bearing the inscription:
“В память о христианах–католиках / сыновьях и дочерях разных народов / легших в лихолетье в эту землю / и ожидающих здесь дня Господня. / Да покоятся в мире. / R.I.P.”
(In memory of the Christian Catholics / sons and daughters from various nations / who, in troubled times, came to their final resting place on this land / and here await the Day of the Lord. / May they rest in peace. / R.I.P.)
The wording followed the traditional style employed at Russian memorial cemeteries, omitting the specific historical context of the “troubled times” or the fate of those “Christian Catholics” who perished there. Father Mikhail also relocated the smaller cross — placed there earlier by the Polish students — to the site of the “In Memory of Poles” stele.
At first, this reorganization seemed to establish a clear distinction between two forms of remembrance: ethnic Polish memory, the symbols of which focused around the stele, and confessional (religious) memory, which found its expression through the large Catholic cross, the figure of the Savior, and the inscription dedicated to “Christian Catholics” who were laid to rest there in those times of woe. (The only explicit reference to ‘Polishness’ at the large cross was formulated on the original granite plaque, which made mention of the “Solovetsky prisoners – Poles.”)
In practice, however, this act of separation was not realized in full. The Polish participation during the annual International Days of Remembrance held on 5 August each year at Sandarmokh clearly demonstrates that both the “confessional” and the “national” sites are treated by commemoration attendees as being equally Polish. This fact confirms my earlier assumption that ethnic and religious remembrance have essentially merged into a form of single national Polish memory. This applies equally to both the participation of Polish diplomats and members of the Polish community in Russia — representatives of local Polish social, cultural, and educational organizations.
The Polish presence at the International Days of Remembrance has proven to be consistent, highly meaningful, and, a sense, rather decisive. Here, a key role has been performed by Polish diplomats, particularly the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Saint Petersburg.
As was previously mentioned, a delegation from the Consulate, headed by Consul General Jerzy Skotarek, participated in the opening of the Memorial Cemetery in October of 1997. In subsequent years, as the annual Days of Remembrance on 5 August evolved into an established annual event, the Consulate’s delegation was in regular attendance — with the Consul General himself as a rule, making an appearance.
Over the years, all of Poland’s subsequently appointed Consul Generals in Saint Petersburg have made a visit to Sandarmokh: Eugeniusz Mielcarek, Jarosław Drozd, Piotr Marciniak, Andrzej Chodkiewicz, and the current Consul General Grzegorz Ślubowski — some of them multiple times. Aside from these figures, other consuls and vice-consuls who have participated include Elżbieta Żeranowska, Wojciech Gutowski, Olga Kacperczyk, Aleksandra Sapieżyńska, Lucyna Morawska-Uhryn, Magdalena Okaj, Bożena Borkowska, Agnieszka Góralska, along with other staff members.
In 2015, the Polish Ambassador to Russia, Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, attended the Days of Remembrance and presented the Gold Cross of Merit (Złoty Krzyż Zasługi) to Yuri Dmitriev, the historian and initial locater of the Sandarmokh site.
Mention should also be made of the regular participation of the Directors of the Polish Institute in Saint Petersburg: Hieronim Grala, Natalia Bryżko-Zapor, and Ewa Ziółkowska.
It should be noted that the annual Days of Remembrance, which begin at Sandarmokh, traditionally conclude on the Solovetsky Islands, a place that a large number participants of the solemn commemorations travel to. Regularly in attendance on such journeys are Polish diplomats, members of Polish community organizations, students, and Polish priests.
In 2011, on the initiative of the Polish Consulate, a commemorative stone was placed by the walls of the Solovetsky Kremlin, bearing a granite plaque with inscriptions in Polish and Russian:
“In memory of Poles / prisoners of Solovki / Compatriots”
(Памяти поляков / узников Соловков / Соотечественники).
The memorial plaque was designed by Vyacheslav Bukhayev.
The monument was unveiled on 7 August 2011 by Jarosław Drozd, Consul General of the Republic of Poland in St. Petersburg, being joined by Vice Consul Olga Kacperczyk and Consul Aleksandra Sapieżyńska. Its consecration was carried out by two priests – the Catholic priest Father Michał Murzyn from St. Catherine’s Parish in St. Petersburg and the Orthodox priest Father Savvaty Buyev, sacristan of the Solovetsky Monastery. In attendance at the ceremony were representatives of the Union of Poles and the Cultural and Educational Association “Polonia” from St. Petersburg, alongside members of the Polish community from Petrozavodsk.
Initially, the monument was intended as a commemoration site for all Poles imprisoned at Solovki, both in the Solovetsky labor camp and in the earlier monastic prison (in the 18th–19th centuries). The original design envisaged the upper part of the plaque bearing the dates “XVIII–XX”. However, when submitting the plan for acceptance, this proposed element of the inscription met with the disapproval of the Arkhangelsk regional authorities, and the co-ordinator was thereby forced to revise the project. Therefore, the anticipated widening of the Polish remembrance in an effort to include the pre-revolutionary repression, did not come to fruition.
In recent years, the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland has effectively taken on the role of main organizer of the diplomatic corps’ participation in the Days of Remembrance, which are traditionally held in Sandarmokh. In contrast to other diplomatic missions, Polish diplomats have made an appearance at the commemorations every single year.
The typical schedule for the Polish official delegation during the 5 August ceremonies proceeds as follows: it starts off with the laying of flowers and wreaths at the central monument dedicated to all victims of executions. After the main commemoration, during which the Polish consul delivers a speech among other assembled foreign diplomats, the delegation proceeds to the Catholic Cross, where a wreath is laid specifically in memory of their compatriots, and there is a prayer recital for the deceased. These are led by Catholic priests from Petrozavodsk, St. Petersburg, and Poland itself. Since 2008, memorial ceremonies have also been extended to the site of the stele named “In Memory of the Poles”.
Members of the Polish delegation also habitually participate in ceremonies that take place at other national monuments. To illustrate, in 2005, Professor Hieronim Grala (then Director of the Polish Institute in St. Petersburg) participated in the unveiling of the Ukrainian monument, the “Cossack Cross,” and in 2008, Jarosław Drozd was involved in the unveiling of the Lithuanian monument.
During the Days of Remembrance, the Polish delegation counts among its ranks not only diplomats but also representatives of Polish community organizations in Russia—such as the Union of Poles and the Cultural and Educational Association “Polonia” in St. Petersburg along with the Karelian Polonia—additionally in attendance are social organizations and research institutions from Poland, including the Union of Siberian Deportees and the Centre for Polish–Russian Dialogue and Understanding(organizer of the summer school for young researchers from Poland and Russia, “Archipelago of Shared Memory”). Janusz Kobryń, a representative of the Union of Siberian Deportees in Bystrzyca Kłodzka, realized a special Polish–Russian youth project, bringing over groups of students from Poland to Sandarmokh, supported in this quest by the Consulate General and the Centre for Polish–Russian Dialogue and Understanding.
What explanation lies behind this strong and enduring interest among Polish circles—including the representatives of diplomatic missions—in this place of remembrance, which, in the strictest sense, bears no direct association with either Poland or Poles?
For me, the simplest and most obvious answer, is as follows: these are people of great culture, possessed of a high level of empathy, who fully comprehend the importance of a shared Polish–Russian effort to confront and process the painful chapters of 20th-century history. That much is certain, it having been confirmed to me by many years of cooperation with the above-mentioned Polish participants of this international initiative. But I would also risk the supposition that my Polish friends display a certain — as it were — “national” interest in Sandarmokh.
I imagine that for the sake of the Polish national spirit, of profound importance is the need to feel part of European history and culture, at the same time, ensuring that European culture and historical memory are not allowed to forget the fact of Poland being an organic part of Europe. As can be witnessed everywhere in our times, it is shared traumatic memory—memory of catastrophes—which plays a central role in collective identity. In the history of Poland in the 20th-century, two such major catastrophes came to pass. First of all was the Second World War and the Nazi-Soviet occupations. Secondly, Poland had to endure the communist terror and the continued humiliation that came with existing as a mere satellite of the USSR.
These two catastrophes overlap in time and are closely interwoven; in Polish reflection, one cannot be separated from the other. By way of illustration, symbolic examples of this historical inseparability are The Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact, the September 1939 invasion, and the Katyń massacre.
That the Polish history of 1939–1945 constitutes an integral part of the history of the Second World War has to be proven to practically no-one—the place and role of Poland in this tragedy are deeply embedded in the broader European historical narrative. It is however a whole different story, when it comes to the fate of Poles in the communist world. And that world itself — the story of its creation, development, and forty-year domination over half of Eurasia — still appears in the minds of many Western Europeans like a “fairy tale not about them,” a kind of extraterrestrial nightmare that can evoke in “civilized Europe” only a form of detached sympathy, leaving one uncertain over which reaction carries the stronger weight — the sympathy or the detachment.
This is why, for Poland—and for all European countries that functioning in the post-communist space— of paramount importance are international initiatives affirming the unity of the historical experience of East and West, strengthening the awareness of a shared tragic past within a European, transnational consciousness. These efforts have up until now, resulted in primarily symbolic gestures—for instance, the European Parliament’s resolution of 2 April 2009, establishing 23 August as the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism. Though purely symbolic in nature, the importance of such gestures cannot be understated.
The consistency with which Poland goes about ensuring support for initiatives that help form a comprehensive pan-European memory of the 20th century—encompassing both communism and Nazism—seems to be entirely natural. That determined initiative springs from a nation-building process which has been shaped by the fact that Poland did not go unaffected by any single catastrophe of that century. As far as Poland is concerned, it is a given that integrating the experience of Russian, post-Soviet, and Eastern European experience of communist state terror into this shared space of collective memory holds a vital significance. Therefore, Poland cannot possibly fail to be involved in international projects that both preserve and deepen awareness of that experience.
In Russia, there are any number of initiatives commemorating the victims of state terror. Yet it appears that only one of them possesses anything that might be described as having an international character—the Sandarmokh Memorial Cemetery and the annual Days of Remembrance which are held there. From this perspective, the consistent Polish presence going back to 1997, and moreover, Poland’s active participation in the organization of the Days of Remembrance, seems to be an entirely natural occurrence—one that evokes neither surprise nor astonishment.
Thus, Poles— as perhaps most consistent advocates of a common European memory of the 20th century’s tragedies—play a key role annually on 5 August, during those memorial ceremonies in Sandarmokh.
At the outset of the International Days of Remembrance in Sandarmokh, they were attended by representatives of the Karelian authorities, with there also being no objections from the Russian federal government. From the mid-2000s onward, however, the situation began to change. Since 2014, following the start of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, officials from Karelia and the Medvezhyegorsk district have pulled out of participation in the 5 August ceremonies.
The official ruling authorities may well have turned their back on Sandarmokh, but the International Days of Remembrance remain. In this context, Poland’s continued presence has taken on new meaning amid the heightened Polish–Russian tensions. Sandarmokh stands as one of the few locations where, regardless of the prevailing circumstances, cooperation between Polish and Russian society endures and even flourishes.
Here, in close proximity to the execution pits of Sandarmokh, understanding does not need to be sought out – for here, it arises quite naturally.
Irina Flige – Researcher of Soviet terror and the history of the Gulag, social activist. Since 1998, member of the St. Petersburg Memorial society; since 2002, its chair and leader. She has spearheaded expeditions that set out to locate mass burial sites in the Solovetsky Islands, Karelia, and in the Leningrad region.
December 2021
Notes:
German Volga Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (editor’s note).
The Union of Poles named after Bishop Antoni Malecki in St. Petersburg is currently known as the Congress of Poles in St. Petersburg (editor’s note).
The Centre for Polish–Russian Dialogue and Understanding is presently named the Juliusz Mieroszewski Centre for Dialogue(editor’s note).
Translated from Polish language by: Jan Dobrodumov
See also: https://mieroszewski.pl/en/shop/sandarmoch