Russia in new Polish gesture
Source: Agencies |
April 29, 2010, Thursday
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RUSSIA'S state archives yesterday for the first time posted documents on the Internet about the Soviet Union's World War II massacre of more than 20,000 Polish officers and other prominent citizens.
The step was a gesture to Poland in a case that looms large in Polish history and has soured relations between the two countries for decades.
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the documents posted on the archives' Russian-language Website, reflecting a new willingness in Russia to accept responsibility for the killings at Katyn and elsewhere in 1940.
Relations between Russia and Poland have warmed following the tragic April 10 plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 others on a flight to visit the Katyn forest in western Russia for a memorial ceremony on the 70th anniversary of the massacre.
But while Medvedev's order was clearly intended as a positive gesture, the documents posted yesterday were made public long ago and already have been published in Poland and Russia. Many more documents remain classified, despite dogged Polish appeals for the archives to be opened.
Medvedev later promised that more documents would be released. "There is some material that has not yet been handed over to our Polish partners. I have given the order to make that happen," he said in Copenhagen.
The Katyn documents would help people learn from history, he said.
The documents now on the Internet were made public in 1992 by Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first post-Soviet leader. They include a March 1940 letter by Lavrenty Beria, head of the secret police, recommending the execution of the Polish prisoners of war. The letter bears the signatures of former Soviet leader Josef Stalin and three other members of the Politburo.
The documents also include the minutes of a Politburo meeting on March 5, 1940, and a note from the head of the Soviet secret police in 1959 informing Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that the Katyn files had been destroyed. For 50 years, the Soviet Union blamed the massacres on the Nazi German forces who invaded in 1941. This remained the official line until Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledged Soviet responsibility in 1990, but Poles had always known the truth and the cover-up fed animosity toward Russia.
Polish historian Andrzej Kunert said although the documents posted yesterday were known to historians, the decision to post them on the Internet was significant.
"We can surely call the decision a breakthrough, because it seems that for the first time a Website that is generally accessible to everyone in the Russian Federation publishes three very important documents concerning the Katyn massacre," Kunert said on Polish TVN24. "It is certainly a very important step forward."
The step was a gesture to Poland in a case that looms large in Polish history and has soured relations between the two countries for decades.
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the documents posted on the archives' Russian-language Website, reflecting a new willingness in Russia to accept responsibility for the killings at Katyn and elsewhere in 1940.
Relations between Russia and Poland have warmed following the tragic April 10 plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 others on a flight to visit the Katyn forest in western Russia for a memorial ceremony on the 70th anniversary of the massacre.
But while Medvedev's order was clearly intended as a positive gesture, the documents posted yesterday were made public long ago and already have been published in Poland and Russia. Many more documents remain classified, despite dogged Polish appeals for the archives to be opened.
Medvedev later promised that more documents would be released. "There is some material that has not yet been handed over to our Polish partners. I have given the order to make that happen," he said in Copenhagen.
The Katyn documents would help people learn from history, he said.
The documents now on the Internet were made public in 1992 by Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first post-Soviet leader. They include a March 1940 letter by Lavrenty Beria, head of the secret police, recommending the execution of the Polish prisoners of war. The letter bears the signatures of former Soviet leader Josef Stalin and three other members of the Politburo.
The documents also include the minutes of a Politburo meeting on March 5, 1940, and a note from the head of the Soviet secret police in 1959 informing Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that the Katyn files had been destroyed. For 50 years, the Soviet Union blamed the massacres on the Nazi German forces who invaded in 1941. This remained the official line until Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledged Soviet responsibility in 1990, but Poles had always known the truth and the cover-up fed animosity toward Russia.
Polish historian Andrzej Kunert said although the documents posted yesterday were known to historians, the decision to post them on the Internet was significant.
"We can surely call the decision a breakthrough, because it seems that for the first time a Website that is generally accessible to everyone in the Russian Federation publishes three very important documents concerning the Katyn massacre," Kunert said on Polish TVN24. "It is certainly a very important step forward."
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