The third Sunday of May is a remarkable day for every Ukrainian. Every year on this day, our country commemorates the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression. The ‘Great Terror’ was launched on the territory of the Soviet Union in 1937 on the initiative of Stalin and the entire leadership of the Soviet government. As a result of repressive actions on the territory of Ukraine, representatives of the intelligentsia were entirely massacred, social ties were destroyed, anti-nationalist ideas were spread, and mass depression reigned in society.

One of the main symbols of political repressions in the USSR is the burials in Bykivnia forest near Kyiv. It became one of the most famous burial sites for victims of totalitarian actions of Soviet times.

During the ‘Great Terror’ in 1937-1938, according to the researchers, the Soviet government convicted almost 200,000 people and shot a third of them.

The ideological heirs of the USSR, Putin's Russia, have once again brought mass political repression to Ukrainian soil. At the cost of many lives, Ukraine is fighting not only to liberate its land from Russian occupiers and restore its sovereignty, but also to ensure that Stalin's methods of the ‘Great Terror’ are not used as a tool of politics in the 21st century.

The Public Library of the KFC of KhNUIA prepared thematic materials to commemorate and honour the victims of this tragedy – the video ‘Memory of Repression: From Past to Present’.