Moscova, 1937
Moscow, 1937

Summary/Abstract: Moscow 1937 was not an ordinary city in an ordinary century, but the seat of action in a century of extremes. Between August 1936 and March 1938 between the first and the third public trial when an extremely dense succession of events took place, the old Moscow collapsed and the new Moscow was born. Moscow 1937 became the cipher of totalitarian violence and of absolute power. In order to fully understand European 20th century history one has to know and discuss the Stalinist violence and the Russian experience. The end of communism in Eastern Europe has meant not only the circulation of new or less new myths of history, but it has also put into motion a passionate action of research and elucidation which in the end will certainly give a new direction to the whole European historical space. This implies also enlightening the events that took place in Moscow in 1937. The essay presents the circumstances, occurrences and consequences of one of the darkest periods of the Stalinist rule, when dozens of thousands of people were arrested and killed or simply disappeared without a trace, when arbitrariness and absolute power made the law, when the executioners became the victims of the system they had fought to defend.

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