Irina Lazarevna S(ch)herbakova (in

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

: Ирина Лазаревна Щербакова) (born 1949) is a

historian of the modern age, an author and a founding member of Memorial. She was awarded the Carl von Ossietsky Prize for Contemporary History and Politics in 2014, and the

Goethe Medal The Goethe Medal, also known as the Goethe-Medaille, is a yearly prize given by the Goethe-Institut honoring non-Germans "who have performed outstanding service for the German language and for international cultural relations". It is an offici ...

in 2017. She has been studying Russia's modern history since the 1970s. Memorial was identified as one of Russia's "foreign agents" in 2016. In 2022, Memorial has been co-awarded the

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolog ...

Life

Shcherbakova was born in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

in 1949. Her parents were

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

. When she went to university, she studied German and earned her doctorate in 1972. She then became a translator working on fiction. In the 1970s she began to record interviews with witnesses to Stalinism. She interviewed

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

survivors who were afraid and would not talk if their recollections were recorded on a tape recorder. In 1988 Shcherbakova was one of the founding members of the organisation called Memorial. She requested that the authorities resolve the cases of the crimes committed whilst Stalinism was in charge in Russia. In 2014 she was chosen to be given the German Ossietzky Award, which includes a prize of 10,000 euros. The judges chose her because of her campaign to study Russia's recent troubled history, and for encouraging German–Russian relations. In 2016 the Memorial organisation was labeled a "

foreign agent A foreign agent is any person or entity actively carrying out the interests of a foreign country while located in another host country, generally outside the protections offered to those working in their official capacity for a diplomatic missio ...

" by the

Russian Ministry of Justice The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation (russian: Министе́рство юсти́ции Росси́йской Федера́ции, Миню́ст Росси́и) is a ministry of the Government of Russia responsible for the leg ...

. In 2017, Shcherbakova was awarded the

.'' Shcherbakova's work has been translated and republished by

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

. In 2019 she accused the Russian establishment of trying to rehabilitate

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

as a national hero while forgetting his human rights abuses, which claimed millions of lives. In 2022, Memorial, Russia's most respected rights group, was co-awarded the

less than a year after it was ordered to shut down during a wave of repression against critical voices.https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221007-memorial-the-conscience-of-russia-banned-under-putin

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scherbakowa, Irina 1949 births Living people Writers from Moscow 20th-century Russian historians 21st-century Russian historians