La memoria del Dissenso in Italia. Per una ricostruzione della rete italiana di sostegno ai dissidenti russi

Between the 1960s and 1980s, Italy was one of the main hubs for Russian publishing abroad. It played a crucial role in spreading information about repression and human rights violations in the Soviet Union, offering refuge to dissidents forced to leave the USSR and supporting those who remained in the country. Although some studies have addressed specific aspects of this important historical phenomenon, the direct relationships between members of the Soviet human rights movement and those in Italy who worked to support and give visibility to Soviet dissent remain largely unexplored. Today, reconstructing who contributed — and how — from Italy to the international network assisting Soviet dissidents is a historically urgent task, especially in light of recent tragic events. In shedding light on a period still insufficiently studied, the testimonies of those who, in past decades, actively participated in the Italian network supporting Russian dissidents are of invaluable importance. It is vital to collect these memories now: time is passing, memories are fading, and fewer people remain who can bear witness to this experience. The project The Memory of Dissidence in Italy is dedicated to researching, collecting, and studying the memories of dissidents who currently live in Italy, as well as those of Italians who, both in Italy and the USSR, supported the human rights movement. The collected interviews will be used to create a bilingual database (Italian and Russian), which will be hosted within the international archive of the Zukunft Memorial Association (Berlin). Project Objectives: • Identify Russian dissidents currently living in Italy and Italians who supported the human rights movement in the USSR. • Conduct video-recorded interviews, using a questionnaire adapted from the one developed for the Memorial Dissidents project. Interviews will be conducted in either Russian or Italian. In the first year, 5 to 8 interviews are planned. • Create a unified and systematized interview database, complete with transcription and editing of the recordings. The database will be developed in both Italian and Russian, including translations as needed. • Integrate the interview database into the Zukunft Memorial archive (Berlin). • Disseminate the research findings through scientific articles and outreach publications.