Fotograf Magazine

Walter Benjamin’s saying “even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins” is illustrated in the postsocialist context in full operation: through different sorts of revisionism, heroization of history and themilitaristic cult of victory, death is instrumentalized. In the Russian context, this tendency is epitomized in the Immortal Regiment (Bessmertny polk) – a civic and patriotic movement and massive march commemorating the participants of the Great Patriotic War. As a massive movement, it has been appropriated to legitimize official power, and has been used as a tool of political PR. What would happen, however, if all the dead were to reclaim their agency and speak directly without any political mediation?