(Counter-)Archive: Memorial Practices of the Soviet Underground. Introduction

In the visionary “Theses on the Concept of History” (1940), Walter Benjamin wrote: “With whom does historicism actually sympathize? The answer is inevitable: with the victor. And all rulers are the heirs of prior conquerors. […] According to traditional practice, the spoils are carried in the procession. They are called ‘cultural treasures’. […] They owe their existence not only to the efforts of the great geniuses who created them, but also to the anonymous toil of others who lived in the same period.