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This paper is written in support of my documentary film Musya. The film follows a group of students from a Russian school in Toronto as they re-enact life stories of a living witness to Stalin’s Reign of Terror, for whom “life under the Soviets was worse than under the Germans during the war”. With major parts of the Soviet security service archives still classified, the topic of mass repressions is being deliberately excluded from the pro-Soviet narrative currently propagated by the Russian political elite. As the memory of this human tragedy is fading, with just a few witnesses remaining, this research project explores how the re-enactment method accompanied by analytical discussions can be used as an alternative way to ignite an intellectual and empathetic conversation on the mistakes of the past, and humanize historical narratives of pain and suffering.

This paper is written in support of my documentary film Musya. The film follows a group of students from a Russian school in Toronto as they re-enact life stories of a living witness to Stalin’s Reign of Terror, for whom “life under the Soviets was worse than under the Germans during the war”. With major parts of the Soviet security service archives still classified, the topic of mass repressions is being deliberately excluded from the pro-Soviet narrative currently propagated by the Russian political elite. As the memory of this human tragedy is fading, with just a few witnesses remaining, this research project explores how the re-enactment method accompanied by analytical discussions can be used as an alternative way to ignite an intellectual and empathetic conversation on the mistakes of the past, and humanize historical narratives of pain and suffering.