The faces of public memory

Abstract

While conducting fieldwork in Moscow in 1995, a Crimean Tatar friend suggested we visit the Pushkin Museum. Rustem told me he received a discount with his artists’ card, so if I would wait, he would purchase our tickets. The next thing I knew, he was pulling me along by the elbow as the woman in the ticket booth cried out, “Traitors! Traitors who sold out the Motherland!” Rustem retorted, “We didn’t sell out, but we’ll certainly buy in!” This brief exchange offers a taste of the way in which Crimean Tatars’ purported collaboration with the German regime during World War II continues to flavor relationships today. From Rustem’s vantage point, the anger and resentment that we witnessed at the museum are just the beginning.