Kirill Rogov on Arseny Roginsky: “His proclivity for self-limitation, perhaps, hindered his contemporaries from understanding the true scale of his personality"

20 December 2018

By Kirill Rogov

Source: HRO.org

Kirill Rogov: “His proclivity for self-limitation, perhaps, hindered his contemporaries from understanding the true scale of his personality."  A great many words, both warm and passionate, have been published on the Net about the death of Arseny Borisovich Roginsky. Indeed, the day passed under the weight of the shock of this day that seemed promised never to come. It's impossible to get used to the thought that we shall never go out again to smoke on the stoop at Memorial, discussing the latest events and looking up at the oatmeal-grey Moscow skies. Just one more time - but no, never again. Of course everyone has these heartfelt emotions and sweet memories. But in fact my attitude towards Roginsky was and is different. In fact I saw in him, and see, one of the most important contemporaries whom I have had the good fortune to know. One of the most significant and important people in Russia of the last 25 years.  Roginsky did not like eye-catching publicity. He hid from his role as one of the key figures in Russian public and political life. From his role of leader and organizer. He preferred the role of eminence grise – either from academic modesty or the habit of conspiracy from Soviet days. He fervently insisted on the distinction completely dividing human rights from politics, and had a strong aversion to the latter. We argued about this when I recorded his lecture about the human rights movement for a course on the Open University. He described the history of the human rights movement as isolated from political history. He said that the dissident movement had given nothing to Russian politics. And although in general that is not true, there is of course a good deal of justice in this view, and much of importance to thing about (if we compare, for example, the fates of dissident movements in Russia and Poland). His proclivity for self-limitation, perhaps, hindered his contemporaries from understanding the true scale of his personality. But, thank God, there is clear evidence, an indisputable proof: Memorial. One of the most extraordinary, beautiful and successful institutions created in Russia over the last 30 years. One of the true achievements of the post-Soviet period. Something in which the historical meaning of this period was able to take form and to leave its mark. But, why only post-Soviet? If we look at the history of Russia as a whole – absolutely the history of the country in its totality – and name the ten most brilliant and significant non-government institutions, then that list will include Memorial.  The lock and key uniting the historian, who became a civil society activist, with the object of his love: Russian history.