Inessa
Jażborowska
The Katyn question came back to life in the historical consciousness of a narrow layer of the Russian Intelligentsia after an absence of several decades due to the consistent secrecy applied even to fakes, plus their inaccessibility even to researchers, despite the official version of German guilt. Thus, it reappeared, at last, in the period of “Perestroika,” along with the arrival of the first information from publications of the “second orbit” [underground] in Poland. It came into something less than official existence on the academic forum in May 1987, on the first day of the proceedings of the mixed commission of Soviet and Polish scholars on the history of relations between the two countries. It was generally referred to as the commission to fill in the “blank spots” in that history.
While compiling the list of problems in the history of these mutual relations that should be cleansed of ideological stereotyping and scientifically verified, the Polish side of the mixed commission firmly demanded from the outset the clarification of the truth about the Katyn question. On the Russian side, only one voice was raised in support of this proposal — that of the author of this article. The others were paralyzed by the argument put forth by Prof. Oleg Rzheshevsky of the Institute of General History of the Soviet [now Russian] Academy of Sciences (who, as it turned out, was in contact with the appropriate department of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party), that there could be no change in the existing interpretation of the Katyn question [emphasis by translator]. After undertaking to conduct a search into the matter, he assured the commission members that there was only one credible source — the materials of the Burdenko Commission. He thus revived and confirmed the Burdenko Commission report.
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(LIII:2, June 2008)
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