RUSSIA: Nationwide poll for the most notable personality in Russia's history in controversial vote

Record ID: 756826

  • Title: RUSSIA: Nationwide poll for the most notable personality in Russia's history in controversial vote
  • Date: 30th December 2008
  • Summary: MOSCOW, RUSSIA (FILE - DECEMBER 21, 2008) (REUTERS) RUSSIAN COMMUNIST PARTY MEMBERS HOLDING BANNERS, WREATH AND STALIN'S PORTRAIT WALKING STALIN'S MONUMENT AT HIS TOMB COMMUNISTS LAYING WREATH STALIN'S MONUMENT
  • Embargoed: 14th January 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA2GBZE2TP8WOA103WBU6QRC51J
  • Story Text: Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was voted Russia's third most popular historical figure in a nationwide poll that ended on Sunday, despite the famine and purges that marked his rule.
    The "Name of Russia" contest run by Rossiya state television channel over more than six months closed on Sunday night with a final vote via the Internet and mobile phones. It drew more than 50 million votes in a nation of 143 million.
    Millions of Soviet citizens perished from famine during forced collectivisation, were executed as "enemies of the people" or died in Gulag hard labour camps during Stalin's rule which lasted for almost 30 years until his death in 1953.
    At the top of the list was 13th century prince Alexander Nevsky, who defeated German invaders, followed by Pyotr Stolypin, a prime minister in the early 20th century known for agrarian reforms and a clampdown on leftist revolutionaries.
    The project was launched in mid-June with a list of 50 historical figures selected from some 500 original ones.
    Support for the Georgian-born Stalin came alongside widespread grief at the death of Soviet-era dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn in August as the project was gaining pace.
    Solzhenitsyn, himself a former political prisoner, told the world the gruesome truth about Stalin's camps in his book "The Gulag Archipelago".
    He said a whiff of Stalinism was felt in Russia's harsh tone with the West which has accused Moscow of backtracking on democratic refoms and keeping a tight lid on dissent.
    "I think Stalin does not merit that place in the contest, there could have been positive things but there were a lot more horrible things done. I like Suvorov, Nevsky is also good," said Tatiana, Moscow resident.

    "Stalin's name should not be listed at this contest, I feel shame for the country which has killed one third of its population, " said Vladimir, lawer in Moscow.
    Stalin's nostalgic supporters like to repeat that he defeated Nazi Germany, industrialised the Soviet Union and achieved total literacy across a backward peasant nation.
    But the campaign goes further than reinterpreting history for schoolchildren. It is also physical.
    Earlier this month, riot police raided the St Petersburg office of one of Russia's best-known human rights organisations, Memorial.
    Claiming a possible link with an "extremist" article published in a local newspaper, the police took away 12 computer hard-drives containing the entire digital archive of the atrocities committed under Stalin.
    Memorial's St Petersburg office specialises in researching the crimes committed by the Soviet regime.
    Rossiya, one of Russia's biggest television stations, has been conducting the "Name of Russia" poll for most of the year. The project aimed to elect the most notable personality in Russian history by voting via the Internet, radio and television. The program is similar to British 100 Greatest Britons and other such projects held in different countries.
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