For centuries, Moscow ruled its provinces with an iron fist. The Russian Empire expected the ethnic minorities to emulate their sovereign. Indigenous nations, Ukrainians, Belorussians and Jews all suffered cultural discrimination and repressive legal and language policies: something that Vladimir Lenin later will call “the prison of nations” and contemporary scholars would name “russification” or “obrusenie.”
The formation of the USSR did not bring relief to the ethnic minorities. Seemingly, the Soviet “indigenization” policies dismantled “the prison of the nations” and allowed them to speak their language and practice traditions. However, that was conditional on the participation in the Communist party and adherence to the eventual goal to dissolve any traces of ethnic culture. Later, repression of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin put the end to even that murky hope, imprisoning everyone who showed a “nationalist” spirit, be it writing in Ukrainian language or going to the Catholic church.
Through restrictions on where to live, which language to speak, and which religion to follow, ethnic minorities were forced to partake in the dominant – Russian culture – the outcomes of which are still seen today in its former colonies.
The virtual exhibition The Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: National Identity Under Totalitarian Rule reminds us that any modern nation that managed to emerge from Russian imperialism remains plagued by the cultural and historical erasure of its past. Assimilated into the culture of the hegemon in the Russian empire and subsequent required to become “upstanding Soviet citizens”—a category closely modeled after the ethnic Russians—the minorities were forced to give up their cultural practices for fear of being considered “backwards” or “villagers.” Today, the republics that remain part of Russia are denied the right to speak indigenous languages in court, and their activists are persecuted. The countries that gained their independence cannot escape the Kremlin’s long hand either—their songs, traditions, languages, and memorials are all shadowed by the regime that repressed them for too long.