Key Points
- Nina Sanadze is a visual artist and sculptor from Melbourne, born in Georgia
- She made a replica of a monument installed near the FSB building in Moscow
- A small procession carried the replica through the streets of Venice and installed it outside the walls of the Russian Pavilion
The Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale may sit silent and empty but a new monument has been installed outside in honour of the victims of Russian and Soviet terror, both past and present.
In late October, Soviet-born, Melbourne-based visual artist and sculptor, Nina Sanadze, went to Venice to participate in an event organised by one of this year's Nobel Peace Prize winners, the Russian civil society known as Memorial.
A "Returning the Names" event has been held near the closed Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Credit: Photo by Enrico Fiorese. Supplied by Nina Sanadze
Returning the Names vigil
An event called “Returning the Names” had taken place in Moscow on 29 October every year since 2007 in memory of the victims of the Soviet Great Terror of 1937-1938 when more than 1.7 million people were arrested by the secret police NKVD with more than 700,000 of those killed for their nationalities, beliefs, political opinions and/or family connections.
The event centred around a stone monument which stands near the offices of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), formerly known as the KGB.
The stone was brought there from the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea where one of the main Soviet-era prison camps was located. Death and imprisonment orders were issued from the FSB building.
Every year, people gathered around the stone to offer their respects or "return the names" to those killed and tortured during the Great Terror.
However, at the end of 2021, a Russian court ordered the closure and elimination of Memorial after it was earlier declared a “foreign agent” by authorities.
Subsequently, this year, the “Returning the Names” event was banned in Moscow after Memorial won the Nobel Peace Prize for promoting “the right to criticise power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens” and for “an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human rights abuses and the abuse of power”.
Partly in response to the ban, Mrs Sanadze says she decided to sculpt a replica of the stone to place outside the Russian Pavillion in Venice as a part of this year's Biennale.
Mrs Sanadze says she’s been thinking a lot about the importance of Memorial's work.
“Information about how many people died and were in the camps was not reported at the state level, people forgot a lot. I thought about this in connection with the war (in Ukraine). I wonder how it is possible that people want to return to the former system, which was so murderous and bloodthirsty," she says.
One of the reasons is that people forgot about the Great Terror, were not informed in a state level or don’t even want to know the truth, according to Mrs Sanadze.
Nina Sanadze and the others carry her replica of the Solovetsky Stone in Venice. Credit: Photo by Enrico Fiorese. Supplied by Nina Sanadze.
We carried the stone for about 500 metres. It reminded me of a funeral procession. The replica of the stone turned out to be quite heavy, and through its heaviness we felt the pain and the weight of this part of history.Nina Sanadze, visual artist and sculptor
Mrs Sanadze says that around 70 people from Australia, Italy, Russia and other post-Soviet countries gathered near the closed Russian Pavilion to read the names of the victims of terror.
“Nobody talked to each other, many people cried. Some of them brought small Ukraine flags. We left them on the fence of the Russian pavilion," the artist says.
The event was especially important for Mrs Sanadze because several members of her family were among the victims of Stalin’s regime.
“My grandmother's brother was executed in 1937. He was the deputy director of the University of Georgia, and he, allegedly, passed some data on to a French journalist," she said.
"At that time, representatives of the intelligentsia and educated people were often executed. He was exonerated afterwards, because, of course, he had been absolutely innocent."
She said his wife and daughter survived the years of terror, but that his daughter’s husband lost both parents in the same period.
His father was shot, and his pregnant mother was sent to a prison camp, where she died, leaving three children.Nina Sanadze
“Returning the names” in Australia
While the Australian artist was carrying her artwork in Venice, activist, Petr Kuzmin, was reading the names of the victims in Melbourne for the second year in a row.
Some Melburnians may know Mr Kuzmin as the person who has stood on Princes Bridge as part of an anti-war protest since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine by Putin's armies.
“I decided to organise this event in Melbourne because there are victims of the Great Terror in my family. My great-grandfather was dispossessed and repressed, as a result of which my grandfather grew up as a homeless child," Mr Kuzmin said.
Activists, Petr Kuzmin and Maya Simonova, at the event entitled "Returning the names" held in Melbourne, October 2022. Credit: Supplied by Petr Kuzmin.
For me, this is a sign of the transformation of Putin’s regime into a rather fascist regime, a sentence for a system that is not even ready to appreciate the history of its own country.Petr Kuzmin, activist
Another activist, Galina Seredina, from Sydney, says she recalls how Memorial’s event used to be held back in Moscow. She used to participate in “Returning the Names” before moving to Australia. This year she joined the same event in Sydney.
Galina Seredina and the other activists at the "Returning the Names" event in Sydney, October 2022. Credit: Supplied by Galina Seredina
She remembered these gatherings in Moscow with special warmth and added: “It's great that, despite the terrible political circumstances, people still gather and read these names. It is impossible to understand our present, to build our future, if we do not analyse and treat the past correctly."
