Holocaust “Sites of Memory” in the Urban Landscape of Moscow Created in the 1990s

East European Jewish Affairs. 2026.

Власов Е. Э.

The present study answers the question of how Moscow's monuments and museums - "Sites of Memory" of the Holocaust – were conceived, negotiated, and materially realized in the 1990s, and analyzes how these memorials construct and sustain a post‑Soviet memory of Jews murdered by the Nazis. The theoretical framework encompasses conceptual apparatus from memory studies, urban studies, and the ethics of Holocaust representation. Sources include archival documents from the collections of the Central State Archive of Moscow, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the Archive of the Federation of Jewish Organizations and Communities “Vaad,” and the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, as well as periodicals, sources of personal origin, and Internet resources. In conclusion, it shows how memory of the Holocaust in Russia has been appropriated by the “Politics of History” based on the narrative of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War. Evidently, this has led to the emergence of a specifically Russian Holocaust memory in which the mass murder of Jews is marginalized and not understood as genocide. As a result, the memory of the victims of the Holocaust is verbalized but plays a subsidiary role in comparison with the sufferings of the Soviet people from 1941-1945

Keywords: Москва, Holocaust, Moscow, Холокост, Museum, Politics of History, Politics of Memory, Sites of Memory, Monuments, Историческая политика, Политика памяти, Места памяти, Музей, Памятники