open access

https://hdl.handle.net/2115/83632

From Anti-Fascist Hero to War Criminal and Back Again: Vasilii Kononov and Conflicted Historical Memory in Europe

英語

2015-07-15

Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University

Slavic Studies

62

1-27

On 31 March, 2011, Vasilii Makarovich Kononov, an old Russian veteran born in Latgale (eastern part of Latvia), breathed his last at a hospital in Riga. He was 89 years old. Dmitry Medvedev, then president of the Russian Federation, sent to his family and relatives a polite telegram of condolence with praise for the deceased’s heroic fights against the Fascists in the Great Patriotic War and his unbending activities to defend historical truths all through his life. One year before his death, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decided that a ruling by the Senate of the Supreme Court of Latvia, in which V. M. Kononov had been sentenced as a war criminal because of his killing of villagers in Latgale, was congruent with Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In spite of pleas by Kononov and the Russian Federation supporting him in his claim that the killing was a lawful act on the grounds of a decision by an ad hoc military tribunal of the Soviet Partisan unit which Kononov commanded, the Grand Chamber of the ECHR rejected the decision by the Third Chamber of the ECHR that the ruling of the domestic court violated Article 7 of the Convention. The decision of the Grand Chamber provoked both fierce criticism among the government and parliament of the Russian Federation on the one side, and the enthusiastic admiration of the Baltic States and specialists of international law in these countries on the other side. The case was an example of conflict in Europe in which different histories and memories of the Second World War and the Communist regime were utilized and mobilized for political and diplomatic aims. It manifested itself whereby not only the people and states concerned but also judges of the ECHR were divided into certain antagonistic parties because of their own situations and experiences in the War and post-war regimes. The aim of this article is to describe aspects of confrontation and conflict between different histories and memories of the near past in the former Soviet Union, especially the Baltic States and the Russian Federation, and to consider the meaning of politicization of histories and memories in contemporary Europe, examining Kononov’s life and his judicial case as an example for analysis. In this article, the following resources and materials are utilized: Tri Moikh Voiny, an autobiography and memoir written by Vasilii Kononov from the period before his arrest in 1998 till just before his death in 2011 and published in 2014, judgments of the Chamber (2008) and Grand Chamber (2010) of the ECHR, reviews of the case by specialists of international law in Baltic countries, statements by the Russian and Latvian governments, articles in newspapers published in Russia and Latvia, and so on. The article is divided into two parts. The first part addresses Kononov’s life from his youth to his activities as a police (militsiia) bureaucrat of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Latvia in the post-war period, having focused on his activities as a Komsomol member and a commander of a partisan unit. The second part traces the juridical procedure in the domestic courts and the ECHR, paying attention to discrepancy and changing judgments among juridical bodies in the context of domestic and international political confrontations. We can perceive the representation of Kononov’s personality to be an arena of struggles between Russian history and memory of the Great Patriotic War on the one hand, and the Latvian (or Baltic and Central-Eastern European) view of “dual occupation” by Nazism and Communism on the other. Co-existence of appraisal as a “partisan hero” and denunciation as a “war criminal” on his personality reflects the severe conflicts in histories and memories between the Russian Federation and the Baltic States. Alongside this, we recognize the troublesome burden which the ECHR has embraced, when it approaches historical matters in former Socialist states. The European framework of contemporary history has been and is being challenged and changed through the offensive of the Baltic as well as Central and Eastern European states, which has provoked a harsh counterattack by the Russian Federation. The ECHR and other European organizations have been caught in these conflicts and embarrassed by the tense and antagonistic relationship with Putin’s Russia.

紀要論文

Version of Record

0562-6579

AN0012574X