It was difficult to know what to make of the huge Stalin statue in the main square in Gori, birthplace of the late Soviet dictator, in Georgia. I first visited Gori in the summer of 2004, and again in May this year, just a few weeks before the statue was removed. It seemed like an oddity, an anachronism, almost an eccentricity that, in a world in which Stalin is so thoroughly discredited, such a monument could continue to exist.
The man was a monster. So surely he did not deserve to be memorialised with such a grand, heroic statue? Yet the world is full of monuments to horrendous men who nevertheless left a considerable, if often terrifying mark. Genghis Khan is lionised in Mongolia, and Tamerlane in Uzbekistan. When we mark the events of the past, and the people who moved them, are we necessarily expressing approval? Is it right, or even realistic to try to expunge parts of our history that are painful or shameful? But of course, it is all about the way in which we remember. We do not commemorate Hitler with a statue in Berlin, or even in Braunau. Rather we commemorate his victims in holocaust museums and former concentration camps preserved as lasting memorials to the evil he perpetrated and the sufferings he caused.
The Stalin statue was removed furtively, in the dead of night, lest the ire of the many citizens of Gori who are still proud of their city’s most famous son be aroused. As statues of Stalin and Lenin were torn down around Georgia following independence almost two decades ago, hundreds of people turned out in Gori to defend their statue. And Stalin still has his followers. On 9 May, World War II veterans turned out in front of the statue with Soviet flags and large pictures of their hero, to mark the victory over Nazi Germany.
My visit to Gori in 2004 was a kind of pilgrimage, of the sort historians make to places of special significance, to get close to the scenes of great events and those who shaped them. In similar spirit, I have also visited Tito’s birthplace in Kumrovec, and his island retreat on Brioni, as well as Hoxha’s villa in Tirana, Churchill’s wartime bunker in London and the palace at Versailles. In Gori you can visit the tiny house where Stalin was born, now encased in a larger pavilion built around it. And there is also his official train in which he travelled to the Yalta and Tehran conferences.
And then there is the museum. I did the full tour, with an English-speaking guide. The whole experience was of being caught in a time warp. I was led through the various galleries dedicated to the achievements of the great man, as my guide proudly explained to me the significance of the exhibits. It was as if all the historical revisionism of half a century since Stalin’s death had not happened. Here we learned of the tremendous strides in economic performance and industrial and agricultural output. The only small negative note, the one hint that all was not entirely well in Stalin’s realm, was the acknowledgement by my guide that “some mistakes were made during collectivisation”. Well yes, millions dead from starvation and deportation. At the end of the tour, as we stood outside the little house of Stalin’s birth, I cautiously mentioned that Stalin was not remembered so rosily in much of the world. My guide smiled sweetly, and said that, yes, she knew that. But here in Gori, many people were still proud of him.
Now, we hear, plans are afoot to reorganise the Stalin museum in Gori into a museum to the Russian aggression in 2008, during which Gori was severely damaged. Or the museum should be rearranged so as properly to reflect the horrors of Stalin’s regime and the huge suffering he caused. The value of both such museums is not in dispute. But I think they should be housed in new buildings, leaving the original Stalin museum as it is. It is actually a rather good museum. Not only does it house some of Stalin’s possessions, his office furniture etc., but the collection of newspapers, posters and photographs, together with the inscriptions that describe them, effectively illustrates how the Stalinist dictatorship saw itself, how it presented itself. The whole museum is in fact one big and highly valuable museum exhibit to the propaganda machine of the Stalinist dictatorship. It should be preserved as it is, so that all of us who did not experience Stalinism can get some inkling of its nature. Gori should indeed have a museum that reflects the horrible truths of Stalinism. But the 1950s museum should rather be a part of that larger museum, preserved as a historical documentary on a time that is no more. No one today or in the future could display as effectively as the creators of the museum in the 1950s how the dictatorship saw itself. It is timeless and priceless.
And the statue? We hear it is to be moved down the road to the museum. That is surely the place for it. Not dominating the town’s main square, a lasting embarrassment and token of infamy. But consigned to a museum, where the sins of our past as well as the achievements are properly remembered.
