1 We use “Kurapaty” rather than “Kuropaty” (Russian), as we have rendered all names in this article in Belarusian, using Belarusian łacinka.

2 The history of the BSSR is reasonably well covered in English works. The earliest study was Vakar, Nicholas P., Belorussia: The Making of a Nation. A Case Study (Cambridge, Mass., 1956)Google Scholar. Others include Lubachko, Ivan S., Belorussia Under Soviet Rule, 1917–1957 (Lexington, 1972)Google Scholar, Zaprudnik, Jan, Belarus: At a Crossroads in History (Boulder, 1993)Google Scholar, Marples, David R., Belarus: From Soviet Rule to Nuclear Catastrophe (Basingstoke, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Wilson, Andrew, Belarus: The Last Dictatorship in Europe (New Haven, 2011)Google Scholar.

3 The two political parties most active in the protection of Kurapaty are the CCP-BPF, which is a registered party, and an offshoot of the original Belarusian Popular Front formed in the late 1980s; and the Christian Democratic Party (CDP), which remains unregistered. Zianon Paźniak, in exile since 1996, is the leader of the CCP-BPF, which is rightist in political orientation, while the CDP is extremely conservative in its views. Both form part of the small political opposition in Belarus. They have no representatives in Parliament.

4 There are a number of versions of the famous article. We had access to the original in the newspaper Litaratura i Mastactva, June 3, 1988, as well as an English version: Zianon Paźniak and Jauhien Šmyhalioŭ, “Kurapaty—the Road of Death,” at https://knihi.com/Zianon_Pazniak/Kurapaty_-_the_road_of_death-eng.html (accessed 15 August 2018). The original full Belarusian version was published in Zianon Paźniak and Valery Bujval, Abarona Kurapataŭ. Narodny miemaryjal (Warsaw, 2012), 93–126. For an early analysis of Paźniak’s findings see David R. Marples, “Kuropaty: The Investigation of a Stalinist Historical Controversy,” Slavic Review 53, No. 2 (Summer 1994): 513–23.

5 Paźniak and Šmyhalioŭ, “Kurapaty—the Road of Death.”

6 Ibid.

7 That the park was a site of executions is now well known. Interestingly, it was established as a public park in 1934, three years before the mass executions began. Though it contains a small monument to the victims of the Stalinist repressions, it has never been acknowledged officially that the park itself was a killing ground.

8 Paźniak and Šmyhalioŭ.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 See, for example, Anatoliy Smolianko, Kuropaty: Gibel΄ fal΄shivki: Dokumenty i fakty (Minsk, 2011). Incidentally, European Jews, mainly from Austria, were brought to the Minsk area to the death camp at Traścianiec on the Mahilioŭ highway east of the city between May and October 1942. Even more confusingly, Kuzniaсoŭ has claimed that the site of the camp was also a Soviet NKVD killing ground in the late 1930s, i.e., the Nazi occupants used the same site. See Igor Kuznetsov, “V poiskakh pravdy o Trostentse,” in Igor Kuznetsov and Ia. Basin, eds., Repressivnaia politika sovetskoi vlasti v Belarusi, pt. 3 (Minsk, 2007), 95.

12 See Igor Kuznetsov (Ihar Kuzniaсoŭ), “Kuropaty: doroga navstrechu pravde,” BelGazeta, June 16, 2008, at http://www.belgazeta.by/ru/2008_06_16/arhiv_bg/16756/_tpl//ru/2013_02_18/economics/ (accessed June 29, 2020).

13 See Alexandra Goujon, “Kurapaty (1937–1941): NKVD Mass Killings in Soviet Belarus,” at https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/kurapaty-1937-1941-nkvd-mass-killings-soviet-belarus.html (accessed June 29, 2020).

14 Belarusian Telegraph Agency, “Belarus president promises memorial in Kuropaty soon,” March 24, 2017, at http://eng.belta.by/president/view/belarus-president-promises-memorial-in-kuropaty-soon-99777–2017/ (accessed June 29, 2020). The Brest Hero Fortress is the second major war memorial in Belarus after Khatyń, near Minsk. Several scholars have questioned the authenticity of the official version of events described, which is that the heroism of the defenders seriously delayed the Nazis’ eastward progress. The original account is based on a propagandist book by Sergei Smirnov, written in novel form without any citations or documentary evidence. Partly as a result of its publication in 1956, Piotr Gavrilov, the leader of the resistance there, received a Hero of the Soviet Union medal in January 1957. Prior to that, he had spent the early postwar years as commander of a labor camp for Japanese prisoners in the Far East, having been expelled from the Communist Party in 1945 for his surrender to the Germans. The myth of the fortress took on its more complete form in 1965, and the Memorial complex was opened in 1971. See, for example, Ganzer, Christian, “German and Soviet Losses as an Indicator of the Length and Intensity of the Battle for the Brest Fortress (1941),” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 27, no. 3 (2014): 449–66Google Scholar; David R. Marples and Per Anders Rudling, “War and Memory in Belarus: the Annexation of the Western Borderlands and the Myth of the Brest Fortress, 1939–1941,” Białoruskie Zeszyty Historyczne, no. 32 (2009): 225–44; and David R. Marples, “Our Glorious Past”: Lukashenka’s Belarus and the Great Patriotic War (Stuttgart, 2014), 233–43.

15 See Zianon S. Paźniak, ed., Kurapaty/ Курапаты (Minsk, 1993), 66–68.

16 Ihar Kuzniaсoŭ, interview, Minsk, October 29, 2018.

17 Zianon Paźniak, “Kurapaty,” Narodnaia peramoha, July 26, 2018. Mikola Kryvalcevič, who conducted archaeological research with Paźniak in 1988, confirmed the number of graves during an interview in Minsk on November 6, 2018.

18 Mikola Kryvalcevič, interview, Minsk, November 6, 2018.

19 Ihar Kuzniaсoŭ, interview, Minsk, October 29, 2018. He did not cite any specific documents.

20 The Fund is linked to the Russian government and funded by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Some funding was also received from the Gorchakov Fund of the Russian Ministry of Affairs for certain events. About a decade ago, the Fund received grants from the Russkii Mir Foundation and for book projects from the Book Chamber. Dyukov’s work on Kurapaty has been conducted in collaboration with the Belarusian Academy of Sciences. He is also a Research Fellow with the Institute of History, Russian Academy of Sciences, which provides him with a salary and publishes his research. Information from: Olesia Orlenko, a fellow worker at the Fund, correspondence, July 11, 2019.

21 Dyukov, A., “The Death Toll in the Kuropaty Massacre,” International Affairs 63, no. 5 (2017): 266–77Google Scholar.

22 V. I. Adamuška, Palityčnyja represii 20–50-ykh hadoŭ na Bielarusi (Minsk, 1994).

23 Ibid., 270.

24 Dyukov, 270, 274.

25 Yulij Karalioŭ, “Ab realnych maštabach stalinskich represij u Bielarusi,” Arche, no. 5 (2014): 27. Arche is a magazine that focuses on politics and history. It is funded by European donors such as the Soros Foundation and Adenauer Stiftung and can be described as in opposition to the Belarusian government.

26 See Kuznetsov (Kuzniaсoŭ), “Kuropaty: doroga navstrechu pravde,” BelGazeta, June 16, 2008, cited previously in n12. There is no archaeological evidence, however, that military officers were buried at Kurapaty.

27 Zianon Paźniak, “Ab kolkaści zabitych u Kurapatach,” Narodnaja pieramoha, June 27, 2018. Paźniak’s figure is greatly inflated. Nove cites several estimates of NKVD victims: V. Kumanov provided a figure of 353,074 shot in 1937 for the entire USSR; Moskovskie Novosti newspaper (March 4, 1990) estimated that 786,098 were shot in the period 1931–53 from a total of 3.77 million people arrested for “counter-revolutionary crimes”; and V. Popov estimated the total for shooting deaths in 1938 at 328,618. The figures render a figure of 250,000 for Belarus alone in 1937–41 very unlikely. See Nove, Alec, “Victims of Stalinism: How Many?” in Getty, J. Arch and Manning, Roberta T., eds., Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives (Cambridge, Eng., 1993), 269–70Google Scholar.

28 See “A delegation from the Institute of National Remembrance visits Minsk 28-30 January 2018,” at https://ipn.gov.pl/en/news/1020,A-delegation-from-the-Institute-of-National-Remembrance-visits-Minsk-28-30-Janua.html?search=77907347, undated (accessed July 2, 2020). There is also the analogy of the large mass grave at Vinnytsia in western Ukraine (it was a border region prior to September 1939), which has been more thoroughly investigated, where 9,439 bodies were found, all killed in a similar fashion to those at Kurapaty. A forensic report conducted on the order of the Reich Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories in 1944 concluded that the deaths had occurred in late 1937–early 1938. Cited in Ihor Kamenetsky, ed., The Tragedy of Vinnytsia: Materials on Stalin’s Policy of Extermination in Ukraine during the Great Purge (Toronto, 1989), 129–30.

29 Halina Abakunčyk, “Ihar Kuzniacoŭ: ‘Dlia novaj ekshumacyi ŭ Kurapatach navukovych abhruntavanniaŭ niama,” July 29, 2015, at https://www.svaboda.org/a/kurapaty/27159620.html, (accessed July 2, 2020).

30 See, for example, “Ulady Belarusi zajavili Polščy, shto ŭich archivach niama belaruskaj častki Katynskaha spisu,” January 29, 2018, at https://www.svaboda.org/a/29005396.html (accessed July 2, 2020). In 2010, Polish president Donald Tusk met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow and raised the question whether records existed in Russia, which Putin denied. See Aleś Daščynski, “Katyń: ‘belaruski spis,” April 7, 2010, https://www.svaboda.org/a/2005402.html (accessed December 9, 2019).

31 Lewis’ comments can be found in Alexander Etkind, Rory Finnin et al, Remembering Katyn (Cambridge, Eng., 2012), pp. 80–81.

32 Goujon, “Kurapaty (1937–1941).”

33 Zianon Paźniak, interview, New York City, July 15, 2018; Mikola Kryvalcevič, interview, November 6, 2018.

34 Valery Bujval, “Kurapaty—Narodnyi Memorial,” extract in Belarusian reprinted from the original Italian version, Valery Buival, La Belarus. Un paese nel centro dell’Europa (Perugia, Italy, 2011).

35 Cited in Kamenetsky, The Tragedy of Vinnytsia, 33.

36 Morris, James, “The Polish Terror: Spy Mania and Ethnic Cleansing in the Great Terror,” Europe-Asia Studies 56, No. 5 (July 2004): 759Google Scholar. See also the publication on the website of Memorial: N.V. Petrov and A.B. Roginskii, “Polskaia operatsiia NKVD 1937–1938 gg.,” http://old.memo.ru/history/polacy/00485art.htm (accessed July 2, 2020). The focus on the Poles was a continuation from the War Scare of 1927, cited by Rudling and linked to the dissolution by the Comintern in 1938 of the Communist Party of Poland and its Belarusian subordinate, the Communist Party of Western Belarus. See Morris, 756.

37 Morris, 756.

38 See his profile on the website of Belarusian State University Faculty of International Relations at https://fir.bsu.by/en/departments/dcs/dcs-kuznetsov-en (accessed July 2, 2020).

39 Tatiana Matveeva, “‘Slavyanskii kubok’ po kulturizmu zavoeval iranets,” October 28, 2013, https://news.tut.by/society/372421.html (accessed July 2, 2020).

40 “Historyk Ihar Kuzniaсoŭ naličyŭ 124 miescy masavych rasstrelaŭ achviaraŭ savieckich represijaŭ u Bielarusi,” January 19, 2017, at https://www.svaboda.org/a/28242708.html (accessed July 2, 2020).

41 Ihar Kuzniaсoŭ, “U Bielarusi rasstraliana kalia 600 tysiač čalaviek,” January 20, 2017, http://kurapaty.info/be/naviny/item/igar-kuznyatsou-u-belarusi-rasstralyana-kalya-600-tysyach-chalavek (last accessed August 16, 2018; no longer available).

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.

44 In theory, the term “repressed” could refer to those who were deported, jailed, or executed. Karalioŭ, ostensibly, uses it to refer to the latter only.

45 In his study of Stalin’s Terror, Robert Thurston comments that earlier estimates of Terror victims were “far too high.” He notes that in the USSR at the start of 1937, there were 2.658 million detainees, of which “821,000 were in labor camps; 375,000 in labor colonies; 545,000 in jails; and 917,000 in ‘special settlements’ or internal exile.” He notes further than in 1939, a year with more extant data, the rate of detention was 2.129 per 100,000 people, or just over 2% of the total Soviet population, i.e. less than a third of what Kuzniaсoŭ is claiming for the BSSR. Further, a table he publishes comparing numbers of individuals “targeted for repression in 1937” shows that the BSSR was in the 50^th percentile for victims, and well below regions such as Leningrad oblast and western Siberia. Thurston, Robert W., Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia 1934–1941 (New Haven, 1996), 61 and 137–38Google Scholar.

46 Karalioŭ, 13.

47 Rudling, Per Anders, The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, 1906–1931 (Pittsburgh, 2014), 280Google Scholar.

48 As a result of the CC CPSU Politburo resolution of July 27, 1937, Belarusian party leader Vasily Šaranhovič and twenty other party and government leaders were arrested, ironically after Šaranhovič himself had led mass repressions in the republic. They were accused of failing to “liquidate the effects of sabotage committed by Polish spies” (all of whom were earlier party leaders of the BSSR). Šaranhovič was part of the Moscow Show Trial of 1938, and confessed to being a Polish spy from 1921. He was shot, but rehabilitated in 1957. See Getty, J. Arch and Naumov, Oleg V., The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939 (New Haven, 1999), 453Google Scholar.

49 Alexandra Goujon, “Kurapaty (1937–1941): NKVD Mass Killings in Soviet Belarus,” SciencesPo, 27 March 2008, https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/kurapaty-1937–1941-nkvd-mass-killings-soviet-belarus (accessed July 2, 2020).

50 Golubovich, V. I. and Bokhan, Yu. M., eds., Istoriia Belarusi v kontekste mirovykh tsivilizatsii (Minsk, 2011), 266–67Google Scholar.

51 Goujon, “Kurapaty (1937–1941).”

52 See, for example, Kasperski, Tatiana, “The Chernobyl Nuclear Accident and Identity Strategies in Belarus,” in Mink, Georges and Neumayer, Laure, eds., History, Memory, and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe: Memory Games (Basingstoke, 2013)Google Scholar.

53 Lizavieta Kasmač (Lizaveta Kasmach), “The Road to the First Belarusian State: Nation-Building in the Context of the First World War and Revolution” (PhD diss., University of Alberta, 2016): 395–96. A similar argument is deployed by Andrew Wilson, examining the period of the late nineteenth century and commenting on Belarusians’ lack of literacy, national consciousness, their mainly rural demographic situation, and their adoption of “wrong” and unappealing national myths, such as the historiography of Polack or the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: Wilson, Belarus, 86–87. Grigory Ioffe dismisses these arguments, and attributes the weak national identity of Belarusians to “the extraordinary degree of closeness” with Russians: Grigory Ioffe, Reassessing Lukashenka: Belarus in Cultural and Geopolitical Context (Basingstoke, 2014), 66.

54 Rudling, Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism.

55 Bekus, Nelly, Struggle Over Identity: The Official and the Alternative ‘Belarusianness’ (Budapest, 2010), 163Google Scholar.

56 Ibid., 166.

57 Ibid., 164–67.

58 Dziady is a traditional Belarusian holiday commemorating dead ancestors. It is celebrated in Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine. In the Catholic tradition it is on November 2, which has become the date of the contemporary Dziady commemoration in Belarus. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the holiday takes place on the Saturday before November 8; Siarhei Dubaviec, ed., Daroha praz Kurapaty (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 2002), 98. The chronicle is a collection of over 200 reports made between September 2001 and June 2002, mainly by Hanna Souś, assisted by Alhierd Nievaroŭski and journalists from the Belarusian Service of Radio Liberty. Souś received the prestigious Alieś Adamovič Award (Belarus) for the best journalism of 2002. She was linked with the opposition and now works for the independent Belarusian Service of the RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media), but we consider these reports to be reliable.

59 Ibid., 103.

60 Ibid., 102.

61 The visit occurred shortly before Belarus held its first presidential elections. Prime Minister Kiebič, a candidate for president, opposed Clinton’s visit to Kurapaty because he feared that it would create publicity for Paźniak, a rival candidate. The American delegation, in turn, had a different priority, which was to persuade the Belarusians to dismantle their remaining nuclear weapons. See Daniel Williams and Ann Devroy, “Clinton Provokes Dispute in Visit to Belarus Purge Memorial,” The Washington Post, January 16, 1994, at https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/01/16/clinton-provokes-dispute-in-visit-to-belarus-purge-memorial/906fb2c2–1238–45cb-8c0e-d9c81184be25/?utm_term=.23e05bed2210 (accessed July 2, 2020).

62 Tony Wesolowsky and Bohdan Andrusyshyn. “Eating Over the Bones at Stalin Killing Field?” June 19, 2018, at https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-kurapaty-mass-graves-restaurant-protest-picket-stalin-killings/29304881.html (accessed July 2, 2020).

63 Siarhei Dubaviec, ed., Daroha praz Kurapaty, 74.

64 Ibid., 91, 107.

65 Ibid., 72, 99.

66 Ibid., 87–89.

67 Ibid., 111–13.

68 Ibid., 114.

69 Ibid., 133.

70 Ibid., 139. The results of the 1997–99 investigation by the military prosecutor’s office had not been made public at the time of writing.

71 Daroha praz Kurapaty, 190.

72 Ibid., 191.

73 Ibid., 134.

74 Ibid., 141–42.

75 Ibid., 423.

76 “Vystavu ‘Praŭda pra Kurapaty’ naviedaŭ Kszysztof Zanussi,” February 22, 2017, at https://www.svaboda.org/a/vystavu-praudu-pra-kurapaty-naviedau-krzysztof-zanussi/28325410.html (accessed July 2, 2020).

77 Ibid.

78 “Hod tamu pačalasia abarona Kurapataŭ ad budaŭnictva biznes-tcentru,” February 16, 2018, at https://www.svaboda.org/a/29044139.html (accessed July 2, 2020); Zmitser Dashkevič, “Abarona Kurapataŭ−2018 i 2017: Paraŭnoŭvaem, chto što rabiŭ dy kazaŭ, September 6, 2018, at https://belsat.eu/news/abarona-kurapatau-2018-i-2017-paraunouvaem-hto-shto-rabiu-dy-kazau/ (accessed July 2, 2020).

79 Hanna Souś, “Kurapaty. Asnoŭnaje,” April 21, 2017, at https://www.svaboda.org/a/28444334.html (accessed July 2, 2020).

80 Ibid.

81 The exact translation of bulbaš is a man who eats a lot of potatoes or bulba in Belarusian.

82 “Jak kalia miesca masavych rasstrelaŭ zjaviŭsia restaran,” undated, at https://www.svaboda.org/a/29270837.html (accessed July 2, 2020).

83 Dzianis Ivašyn, “Ja raskryŭ tych, chto pabudavaŭ ‘restaran na kostkach,’” June 15, 2018, at https://novychas.by/hramadstva/dzjanis-ivaszyn-ja-raskryu-tyh-hto-pabudavau-re (accessed July 2, 2020).

84 Mikalai Dziadok, “Sud nad ‘Novym Časam’: Isk pakinuć bez zadavalniennia!” September 10, 2018, at https://novychas.by/palityka/sud-nad-novym-czasam-abnauljaecca (accessed June 2, 2020).

85 Alieh Hruździlovič, “Tavarystsva achovy pomnikaŭ voźmie hrošy ad ulasnika ‘Poedem poedim’ na Kurapaty. Piketoŭcy aburanyja,” November 8, 2018, at https://www.svaboda.org/a/29590178.html (accessed July 2, 2020).

86 Valery Bujval, interview, Minsk, November 2, 2018.

87 Golgotha is the name used by the activists to stress the martyrdom of the Stalinist victims killed at Kurapaty. See also A. Sh., “U Kurapatach ustaliavali dziaržaŭny miemaryjalny znak,” November 6, 2018, at https://www.svaboda.org/a/29585265.html (accessed July 2, 2020).

88 Alieh Hruździlovič, “Dziaržaŭnaja kamisija pryniala pomnik u Kurapatach biez zaŭvah,” November 14, 2018, at https://www.svaboda.org/a/29600816.html (accessed July 2, 2020).

89 Julija Labanava, “U Kurapatach adkryli aficyjny pomnik achviaram stalinskich represijaŭ,” November 15, 2018, at https://belsat.eu/in-focus/u-kurapatah-adkryli-afitsyjny-pomnik-ahvyaram-stalinskih-represiyau/ (accessed July 2, 2020); “Skulptarka raspaviala, jak vyhliadaje novy miemaryjal u Kurapatach,” at https://belsat.eu/programs/skulptarka-raspavyala-yak-budze-vyglyadats-novy-memaryyal-u-kurapatah/ (accessed July 2, 2020). The monument’s construction followed a national competition for suggested designs and was approved by the Belarus Ministry of Culture. It was sculpted by Volha Niačaj (Olga Nechai) and Siarhei Ahanaŭ (Sergei Aganov), along with architects Maryja Markaŭcava (Maria Markavtseva) and Volha Jarmolina (Olga Iermolina). “On the sides of the monument are the words ‘mother, son, father, grandfather, beloved one,’ in different languages. The idea is to show that all victims of political repression were someone’s relatives,” as cited in Snezhana Inanets and Aleksandr Lychavko, “Dva imeni na 500 bratskikh mogil. Chto za kresty i pochemu stoiat v Kuropatakh,” at https://news.tut.by/society/633302.html (accessed July 2, 2020).

90 “Pomniki ŭ Kurapatach razmaliavanyja vandalami,” March 23, 2019, at https://novychas.by/palityka/pomniki-u-kurapatah-razmaljavanyja-svastykami (accessed July 2, 2020).

91 Alieh Hruździlovič and Uladź Hrydzin, “Lavu Klintana ŭ Kurapatach znoŭ razburyli,” 7 February 2019, at https://www.svaboda.org/a/29757235.html (accessed July 2, 2020); Paval Sieviaryniec, “U Kurapatach palamali 14 kryžoŭ,” March 20, 2019, at https://belsat.eu/news/u-kurapatah-palamali-14-kryzhou/ (accessed July 2, 2020).

92 RFE/RL Belarus Service, “Belarus Removes Crosses from Stalin Victims Memorial,” April 4, 2019, at https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-crosses-removed/29861830.html (accessed July 2, 2020); “Belarus demolishes crosses at Soviet-era execution site,” 4 April 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47816897 (last accessed 30 July 2019).

93 “Lukashenka calls to pay tribute to Kuropaty victims,” April 22, 2019, at https://eng.belta.by/president/view/lukashenko-calls-to-pay-tribute-to-kuropaty-victims-120523-2019/ (accessed July 2, 2020).

94 The authors visited these sites in September 2019, hosted by members of the CCP-BPF. There is another site in a forest near the southern city of Homiel.

95 This is not to imply that the deployment of historical memory in Russia and Ukraine is the same. In Russia, such inquiries were largely limited to the late Gorbachev period and mostly shelved today. In Ukraine, by contrast, victimization in the Stalin period might be described as the defining force of national identity, starting with the Holodomor of 1933 and accusations that the Soviet regime committed genocide against Ukrainians. Of the voluminous output on historical memory in Ukraine, a succinct report is Oxana Shevel, “The Battle for Historical Memory in Postrevolutionary Ukraine,” Current History (October 2016): 258–63.