THE CHARTER OF THE ‘MEMORIAL’ Memorial is a movement which arose
in the years of perestroika. Its main task was the awakening and
preservation of the societal memory of the severe political
persecution in the recent past of the Soviet Union. Memorial is
a community of dozens of organizations in different regions of
Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Georgia. Memorial is a
group of specialized research, human rights, and education
centers in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and several other cities.
Memorial is a museum, a repository of documents, and a number of
specialized libraries. Memorial is the Solovetskii stone on
Lubianka Square in Moscow, placed across from the KGB
headquarters on 30 October 1990. On that date in 1974 prisoners
in the Mordvinian and Perm' political camps voted to declare a
Day of Political Prisoners in the USSR. In 1991, on the
initiative of Memorial, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR
officially recognized this date as a Day of Remembrance of the
Victims of Political Repression. Memorial