Polsat News – The president of the Russian historical memory organisation has told the BBC that he was advised by President Putin that he should not accept the Nobel Peace Prize, advice that he did “not take into account”.
Jan Raczynski’s organisation, Memorial, was one of three to share the 2022 edition of the Peace Prize, alongside Belarusian opposition figure Ales Bialiatski and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties. Memorial, which was first set up in 1989, has had a leading role in documenting crimes committed during the Stalinist era of Russian history. However, the organisation was liquidated in February 2022 due to a Russian court decision.
In an interview with the BBC, Raczysnki explained that “in today’s Russia, no one can be guaranteed security”, and with reference to the work of his organisation, added that under the current regime “many have been killed, and we know what state impunity leads to”. He went on to explain how unfortunately at the end of the Soviet period, “Russian society did not have the strength to put an end to the cycle of violence” and that as a result “the fact that we have such power in Russia today is because the problems of the past have never been resolved”.
Razcynski also explains to the BBC that after the announcement of the award was made, he was contacted by people in the Kremlin who told it would be “inappropriate” for him to accept it due to the nature of the other two organisations that Memorial would share the prize with. However, he stresses that “of course we didn’t heed that advice”.
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