Yesterday at our lunch seminar Ilja Viktorov presented his impressions from a visit to the Solovki islands in Russia. What impressed me in regard to remembering/forgetting context is the erasure of memory realized through what can be called
re-contextualization of the GULag experience. As the camp was actually situated in the premises of the Solovetski monastery, the only
"place of remembering" that remained after the camp had been closed was the monastery without any traces of the camp. Now Solovetski monastery is functioning for religious purposes, while the memorials and the museum of the GULag are located in the places close to the monastery but not in its premises. In this way, memory of the place is dislocated to the
lieux de mémoire detached from the experienced places themselves.
