DOMUS PATRIS
Citizens and Spies
To betray friends for the Motherland [3:58]
There were secret collaborators everywhere: informants and denouncers in all institutes, business, collective farms, and in every communal apartment.
To ensure the state’s security, the supposed betrayal was punished as if it were an actual one – by a long prison term or death.
During interrogations, the suspected accused all of their relatives and acquaintances and confessed to all conceivable crimes because they were not simply beaten, they were brutally tortured.
What is a Citizen?
“So just what is a citizen? – It’s the fatherland’s worthy son,” the poet Nikolai Nekrasov wrote in the 19th century. To be a worthy son means to serve the fatherland for its benefit. Stalin, the head of the government, was honoured as father of the people. For that reason, like a loving father looks after an unreasonable child in order to protect him from danger, the government watched its citizens in order to shield them from actions that co...
Imagine yourself as an ordinary Soviet citizen
Let’s suppose that you’re an educated individual with a sense of honour. You’re ordered to denounce your friends. With indignation, you refuse and, in doing so, demonstrate your disloyalty to the government because you have a different system of values. Your arrest is merely a matter of time. Now imagine that you’re a beautiful woman posed with the same choice. What’s waiting for you in prison? And how are they going to use you if you yield to...
Testimonies
-
Citizens and Spies
To betray friends for the Motherland [3:58]
-
Mikhail Trukhanov
A rare Opportunity [2:35]
-
Alksnis Yanovich
"He did not sign the Confession..." [2:34]
-
Natalya Zaporozhets
Sealed with Bread [2:48]
-
Nikolay Derevtsov
Death and Forgiveness [2:41]
-
Vitaly Tukhin
A fateful Funeral Service [2:28]