In the dark. Access to key Russian archives is being restricted as the state seeks to tighten its control of historical memory

Archive files detailing the fate of millions of Soviet citizens who were executed or imprisoned during the Stalin era have suddenly been made harder for historians to access. The Russian federal archive authority’s decision to limit access to such documents to the relatives of individual victims is both a violation of Russian law and will further hamper the work of historians researching the period. As it is, to date just a quarter of Stalin’s victims are known to historians by name.

Russian Federation