Stalin Museum In Georgia Will No Longer Glorify Dictator, To Focus On His Atrocities

GORI, Georgia -- A museum that has honored Josef Stalin in Georgia since 1937 is being remodeled to exhibit the atrocities that were committed during the Soviet dictator's rule.

Georgian Culture Minister Nika Rurua said Monday that his nation, which became independent in 1991, can no longer host a museum "glorifying the Soviet dictator."

Stalin was born Josef Dzhugashvili in the central Georgian town of Gori in 1879, and the museum opened here in 1937, at the height of purges that were later dubbed the Great Terror.

The gigantic museum includes the house where Stalin was born and some 47,000 exhibits, including his personal belongings and death masks.

It remained open despite the de-Stalinization campaign and denunciation of his personality cult declared by Stalin's successor Nikita Khrushchev in 1956.

But in post-Soviet Georgia, whose pro-Western government has been actively removing traces of Soviet past, the museum seemed like an anachronism that mostly attracted foreign tourists and a few die-hard Communists.

Stalin, who died in 1953, remains a divisive issue in the former Soviet Union.

He is still revered by many who say he led the Soviet Union to victory in World War II and turned a struggling nation into a superpower. Some of his most ardent supporters are still found in Gori.

"Stalin was a great man. He defeated Nazism," said Gori native Archil Dzhikvaishvili, 65. "As to the purges, they did take place, but there were significantly fewer victims than the number we hear today."

According to the prominent Russian right group Memorial, Stalin ordered the deaths of at least 724,000 people, while millions died as a result of the forced labor system in Gulags, the Soviet prison system.

Millions of others, including entire ethnic groups such as Chechens and Volga Germans, were forcibly resettled, mostly to Soviet Central Asia.

Many of Stalin's victims were ethnic Georgians, including his former Bolshevik Party comrades who witnessed his rise to power in the 1920s.

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Comments

[glitterpet]

02:29 PM on 04/10/2012

. . a good first step . .

[jsgaetano]

04:50 PM on 04/09/2012

Now if they could only get the George Dubai Bush museum to stop glorifying his failed and fraud-based maladministration.

[glitterpet]

02:31 PM on 04/10/2012

. . I hope this is parody . . becuase your analogy is fatally flawed! I did not care for Bush and his Administration, and abhor the Iraq/Pakistani wars, but he is not an American Stalin!

[jsgaetano]

10:44 PM on 04/10/2012

But he IS a war criminal.

[MHB48]

04:07 PM on 04/09/2012

Stalin was a VERY bad man. He's right down there with Hitler, Mao & Pol Pot.

[jsgaetano]

04:53 PM on 04/09/2012

Just imagine how fortunately the world is that Hitler foolishly attacked Russia. Had it not been for that, Europe would be speaking German, and most of the rest would be speaking Russian. Doubt either would have helped the Japanese very much.

[elena ccia]

04:59 PM on 04/09/2012

3 very hard languages, among other things :D

[one1byke]

04:58 PM on 04/09/2012

Read some.

Mao saved the Chinese from total European subjugation.
History doesn't start when you say it does.

[glitterpet]

02:39 PM on 04/10/2012

I don't believe that is what the poster implied; yes, Mao did run out the Europeans, it's what he did next that earns him a spot on the Villains list: .. ever hear of the 100 Flowers Campaign and the atrocities committed as he consolidated his power? Or how about that Cultural Revolution? The wholesale slaughter of dissidents and intellectuals, children encouraged and rewarded for turning in parents for "re education'?, and the wanton destruction of over 5,000 years of cultural artifacts? The list, actually, goes on . ..

[The Kamala Farang]

12:49 PM on 04/09/2012

Stalin ordered the death of 724k, but responsible for the death of 20 million. That's 20 million. Most of those, his own people. Joe was a psychopath. I hope the museum highlights that fact. I hope the museum points out that they just now made the change in philosophy, probably not.

Jolting Joe Stalin, #2 on the World's Worst List with Mao #1 and Hitler #3. I know people want to put Adolph up there at #1, but he doesn't hold a candle to Mao. It's tough coming up with a number for Mao but 35 million is a good starting point. These three are going to hold onto their positions for the near future anyway, no matter how you rank them. That number of people dying under their regimes is a 20th Century phenom.

[bobjimflys]

12:37 PM on 04/09/2012

I am sure the Ten Million or so Russians who died in Georgia will appreciate the change...

[glitterpet]

02:46 PM on 04/10/2012

I believe they were and are ethnic Ukranians, which is why they were purged, not Russians. The Holodormor has been recognized by over 26 nations as genocide against the Ukranian pople, not the Russians! The Ukranians lived in a Soviet Socialist republic run by Stalin and the Kremlin from Moscow.

Any step forward is a step towards the light. . .

[bobjimflys]

04:12 PM on 04/10/2012

They were Ukranians living in the USSR, got you...
They ticked off Stalin, that was a bad thing to do back in the day.

[kasel1]

12:28 PM on 04/09/2012

"...significantly fewer victims ..." Hah! What, he only killed 100,000, not a million? What a puppy dog.