The Heroic Executioner: Malevolent and Benevolent Perpetrators in Russian Museum Exhibitions on the Soviet Terror

The cosmopolitan memory culture or the moral remembrance paradigm, which typically addresses memories of human rights atrocities and often focuses on the binary relationship between victims and perpetrators. However, recent scholarly developments, including Michael Rothberg’s theorization of the implicated subject, have complicated this dichotomy. Drawing on ethnographic research from 15 museums focused on Soviet terror across five Russian regions, I introduce an additional layer to this framework: the perpetrator-hero continuum or the malevolent-benevolent character of perpetrators’ agency. While in traditional cosmopolitan memory culture, such a concept might seem unimaginable, in the context of an undemocratic society like Russia, the figure of the perpetrator can be reinterpreted in multiple ways, which also puts into question the dominant moral remembrance paradigm in general. This reinterpretation often involves heroization, driven not only by state pressure but also local agendas—such as appealing to pro-Stalinist audiences or fostering regional solidarity, even around former camp authorities.