Sergei Sokolov1; 1 Ural Federa l University, Russian Federation
Discussion
In July 1918, the abdicated Russian tsar Nicolas II, his family, and servants were executed in a house in the centre of Ekaterinburg. The house had changed from a revolutionary museum to a regional Communist Party archive since then until it was demolished in 1977. Short before, in 1974, the house was officially designated as aHistorical-Revolutionary Monument. The initiative came from the local community united in the Regional Branch of All-Russia Organization for Monument’s Protection.Around that time the house became a point of pilgrimage and whereas made Communist Party leaders to feel uncomfortable. Feared of possible political inconvenience in the approach of the 60th anniversary of the Revolution, the Politburo secretly ordered for the house to be destroyed. The plan partially became known to the local intelligentsia, and they campaigned for the house preservation. The campaign itself is a brilliant example of civil society action, it skillfully exploited official dogmas. The campaigners wrote letters to different government and party bodies, provided history expertise on the house, and even proposed a plan of transforming it into a museum. But all was in vain.The paper is based on the documents of the former local Communist Party archive and materials from the Regional Branch of All-Russia Organization for Monument’s Protection, which along with the 1970s media coverage give some insight into the case.
