New projects

The documentary graphic novel narrates the story of one of the most numerous underground group contesting Stalin politics in the post-war years USSR. By 1947, Boris Batuev, 16 years old, grew conscious about the immense gap between propaganda and the misery people live in the USSR devastated by war. He blames Staline for this situation, highlighting the hypocrisy in the society, bad management and the burden of cult of personality. Important to mention, Boris is not a regular soviet boy. His father is the second commisar of the the Voronezh region, a sincere devoted communist. Boris is well-educated, talented boy burning with desire to get back ideals of communism of the period previous to Staline’s rise. He decides to create "the party of the Communist Youth" aiming to impeach Staline in the future. Within a year he managed to establish it: his net covered about 90 people, aged between 15 and 21. The exact number isn't known, because of the inner organization aiming to protect its members - the classical revolutionary model of group of five was implemented . That successfully worked, the KGB couldn't find most of the party members, but the heads were betrayed by one of theirs. Police investigation was long and resulted in the sentence without conviction to the court, an eloquent example of wide-spread practice in Staline law - the Special Council of the NKVD in Moscow states its decision and communicates it to the sentenced. The signature on the paper is formality, it always can be faked afterwords. The following story is this of Goulag journey until liberation coming thanks to Stalin’s death in 1953.

This is the story of resistance, rather than repression. The story of indomitable will and a naif hope, idealistic, but serious youth ready for personal sacrifice in the darkest times, people not at all on their knees. This way I want to show another side of soviet history, the side that was neglected while everybody was concentrated on soviet people martyr-ship through Stalin’s rule. Second, the history of organized anti-stalin resistance during 1940ties is practically unknown by large public (except for general Vlasov, but this is very negatively viewed). But more importantly, in today political context, we observe a certain renaissance of cult of personality in Russia. It goes along with a history review, creation of uncritical myths widely spread by mass media. It doesn't concern all the epochs, of course, it’s not the complete change of educational system, that hopefully is unlikely to come up. But the accents are made in a way that goes to manipulate history onto nationalistic path. That’s particularly obvious with the Great victory celebration with the parade becoming the more and more popular, with the voices raising for the greater militarisation and the constant mis en opposition of Russia and the Western world. Which reminds us this history lesson we’re not able to learn well for more than half of a century. 

So my documentary graphic novel could remind the larger public that the history is never homogenous, and society is much more complex than nationalistic ideal of one people united by one and unanimous will.

natashaburyka@gmail.com