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Traces of History
Russia
Tatyana Kozlova
Born 1994 in Jasny Orenburg, Russia
High school Student (“Kamenolomni High school no. 20”)
Nelly Ivanovna Gauss, the author’s English language teacher, was chosen to investigate how ordinary people, that refused joining the Communist party, could resist under the pressures of the socialist regime in Russia. By interviewing her, Tatyana gets hold of information relating to her teacher’s life before and after the Second World War and what it meant for an intellectual like her to live under repression. Curiously enough, Miss Ivanovna could refuse joining the party, just by saying that there were far too many indecent people within its structures and still not get arrested for it. Other forms of persecution were to follow in the next years.
For her contribution to the Russian national history competition Tatyana Kozlova has been awarded a special prize for her video presentation of the project.
Aliya Safina
Born 1987 in Kalininabad, Tajikistan
Student (Biochemistry; Kazan State University)
"Confrontations with yesterday and today: German and Japanese prisoners of war as seen by the people of Jelabuga" (2005)
What was the price of victory for the Soviet Army in World War II - or how humane can prisoner of war camps be? Aliya Safina asked these questions in her competition project, and focused on German and Japanese prisoners of war in the Jelabuga POW camp. The Russian student undertakes to illuminate a largely unexplored chapter of the history of her hometown, Jelabuga, a town with a population of 69,000 in the Russian federal republic of Tatarstan. In so doing, Aliya Safina runs into the challenge of finding reliable archival material in a post-communist country, in order to be able to examine an historical themes from all sides and not just accept the perspective of former Soviet propaganda: "The fate of prisoners of war was not a topic for historical research in Soviet times. Documents and information were secret, inaccessible to scientists. Some were made available in the 1990s, but that can't reveal all points of view."
Using memoirs and letters written by German prisoners of war and by residents of the city of Jelabuga who encountered the prisoners as doctors or translators, Aliya Safina tried to reconstruct living conditions in the camp, including provision of food and clothing, medical care and cultural life. With her project for the competition, this 20-year-old student provides an important contribution to Russian historiography in the post-communist era, by rejecting the earlier one-sided anti-fascist propaganda. Beyond reconstructing historical facts, Aliya Safina wanted to show "that no international conflict should be resolved using the tools of war."
Aliya Safina won a third prize for her competition entry: "Confrontations with yesterday and today: German and Japanese prisoners of war as seen by the people of Jelabuga" in the Russian History Competition of 2005, whose theme was: "Russia in the 20th century - the price of victory."
Nadezhda Shalaurova
Born 1989 in Lukovetskiy, Russia
Student (Foreign Trade Management; Russian Foreign Trade Academy)
"The Ukrainian American with a Russian soul" (2005)
Nadezhda Shalaurova's contribution is a study of one person's fate: that of a "Ukrainian American with a Russian soul." The 18-year-old Russian tells the life story of her great grandfather Michael, in the context of the seismic shifts of the 20th century: Under Stalin, Michael was deported from Ukraine to northern Russia; he fought in the Soviet Army in the "Great War for the Fatherland" - World War II; he landed in prison but managed to escape from a concentration camp. Fearing Stalinist repressions against escaped prisoners, he finally managed to flee via France to the USA. Only in 2001 did he contact his Russian family again. In the course of her research, Nadezhda Shalaurova was especially impressed by the realization that historical events such as war, imprisonment and emigration are made so much more vivid through the retelling of one person's life journey: "Suddenly, history was not only a school subject to me, but more like a great ocean of individual destinies."
Nadezhda Shalaurova won a third prize in 2005 with her work: "The Ukrainian American with a Russian soul" in the Russian History Competition: "Russia in the 20th century - the price of victory."
