The Russian State’s Lost Birth Certificate

The centennial of the Russian revolution is not a big thing in modern Russia. It feels like an obscure old holiday or a literary anniversary known only to the initiated. It is no longer a historical event that forms the nation’s founding myth.

On Monday, just a few days before November 7, the date the centennial strikes, President Vladimir Putin took part in an unveiling of the Wall of Sorrow, a monument to victims of the very state that turns 100 years old in a week. “We and our successors must remember the tragedy of repressions and their causes,” Putin said, speaking at a televised ceremony, shown as item one on national television. “But it does not mean one must call for revenge. Nobody can push society to the dangerous line of confrontation.”