Moscow’s Gulag Museum renamed Museum of Memory and dedicated to ‘genocide of the Soviet people’

The Gulag History Museum in Moscow is to be renamed the Museum of Memory and dedicated to the “genocide of the Soviet people”, according to art critic Ksenia Korobeynikova, who posted the news on her Telegram channel on Friday.

A statement published on the museum’s website later on Friday confirmed both the name change and that the rebranded institution would be dedicated to the victims of the “genocide of the Soviet people” and would cover “all stages of the Nazi war crimes during the Great Patriotic War”.

The sudden change in curatorial focus is a significant one in a country where discussion of Soviet atrocities and political repression has become increasingly taboo in recent years. By switching the museum’s focus from the Soviet Union’s own network of Gulags to the millions of people the USSR lost in World War II, the museum will effectively become part of a massive Kremlin-led propaganda effort to cast the Soviet Union as a victim.

The Gulag History Museum was forced to close in November 2024, ostensibly due to fire safety violations, but which was later revealed to have been due to a clash between Moscow’s Culture Department and then-museum director Roman Romanov after he refused to censor an exhibition on Soviet repression. Romanov was subsequently dismissed from his post.

The museum has remained closed since then, though it’s expected to reopen at some point later this year, according to Moscow City Hall. Combat veteran Natalia Kalashnikova, the former director of the Smolensk Fortress in western Russia, has been appointed the rebranded museum’s director, according to Korobeynikova.

Established in 2001, the award-winning Gulag History Museum was the only state museum in Russia dedicated to Soviet-era repression and the history of the USSR’s extensive prison camp network, drawing on official records and the personal belongings of Gulag victims to present vivid and harrowing exhibits.