Irina Scherbakowa

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Irina Sherbakova
Irina Scherbakowa 2015 (sq cropped).JPG
in 2015
Born1949
Moscow
NationalitySoviet Union
OccupationHistorian, journalist, activist
Known forinvestigating modern Russian history

Irina Lazarevna S(ch)herbakova (born 1949) is a Russian historian of the modern age, an author and a founding member of Memorial. She won the  [de] in 2014 and the Goethe Medal in 2017. She has been studying Russia's modern history since the 1970s. "Memorial" was identified as one of Russia's "foreign agents" in 2016.

Life[]

Sherbakova was born in Moscow in 1949.[1] Her parents were communists and Jewish. When she went to university she studied German and claimed her doctorate in 1972. She then became a translator working on fiction.[2]

In the 1970s she began to record interviews with witnesses to Stalinism.[2] She interviewed Gulag survivors who were afraid and would not talk if their recollections were recorded on a tape recorder.[3]

In 1988 Shcherbakova was one of the founding members of the organisation called Memorial.[2] She has been requesting that the authorities resolve the cases of the crimes committed whilst Stalinism was in charge in Russia.[4]

In 2014 she was chosen to be given the German  [de] which includes a prize of 10,000 euros. The judges chose her because of her campaign to study Russia's recent troubled history and for encouraging German - Russian relations.[2]

In 2016 the Memorial organisation was identified as a “foreign agent" by the Russian Ministry of Justice. In 2017 Shernakova was awarded the Goethe Medal.[1]

Shernakova's work has been translated and republished by The Guardian. In 2019 she accused the Russian establishment of trying to rehabilitate Joseph Stalin as a national hero and forgetting his human rights abuses which claimed millions of lives.[5]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b "Irina Scherbakowa". @GI_weltweit. Retrieved 2020-12-28.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Welle (www.dw.com), Deutsche. "Russian historian Irina Sherbakova receives Carl von Ossietsky Prize | DW | 04.05.2014". DW.COM. Retrieved 2020-12-28.
  3. ^ Jolly, Margaretta (2013-12-04). Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical Forms. Routledge. p. 824. ISBN 978-1-136-78744-7.
  4. ^ "Album". www.geschichte-menschenrechte.de (in German). Retrieved 2020-12-28.
  5. ^ "Vladimir Putin's Russia is rehabilitating Stalin. We must not let it happen | Irina Sherbakova". the Guardian. 2019-07-10. Retrieved 2020-12-28.
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