The Last Address (Masha Lipman. "Humble Memorials for Stalin’s Victims in Moscow". The New Yorker. 13 December 2014) is a large-scale public memorial project designed to commemorate the memory of innocent people who died as a result of political repressions committed by the Soviet authorities. Its principle is "One name, one life, one sign". Within the framework of the project, a small, palm-sized, minimalist metal memorial sign of rectangular shape is installed on the house that became the last lifetime address of the victim of state arbitrariness. It bears the name of the murdered person, their year of birth, profession, dates of arrest, death and year of legal rehabilitation. On the left side of the plaque is a square hole, reminiscent of a photograph missing from the card. The aggregate of many such personalized memorial signs forms a «network» memorial scattered in different cities around the world.https://www.rferl.org/a/last-address-project-aims-to-honor-/26711340.html
The Last Address is an entirely civic project and commemorative practice. Its key principle is that the initiative to install each plaque (as well as its payment) comes from one specific person who wanted to honor another specific person who died as a result of political repression. This can be a relative or close friend of the murdered person, or a resident of the house that became the last address of the victim, or any other person who considered such a step important for him or her.
The main source of information on victims of political repression for the project is the multi-million name database collected by Memorial since the 1990s. The Last Address is the de facto physical embodiment of this virtual list. Inspired by similar German memorial Stolpersteine, this project was launched in 2014. As of 2023, more than one and a half thousand memorial signs have been installed on houses in dozens of cities. Since 2017, the project went beyond Russia and became international: its signs began to be placed in the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Germany and France. At the same time, the authors and researchers note that the goal of the "Last Address" is not the installation of millions of signs "on every house", but the memory and reflection that arise as a result of the initiative.
Structure and symbolism
Immediately after the October Revolution, the new authorities began a policy of state terror against the inhabitants of their country. According to researchers' estimates, during the existence of the Soviet regime millions of people suffered as a result of political repression, hundreds of thousands of them were killed.Хаустов В. Н.. Большой террор // Большая российская энциклопедия / Глав. ред. Ю. С. Осипов, отв. ред. С. Л. Кравец. — М.: Большая российская энциклопедия, 2006. — Т. 4. — С. 13. — 766 с. — 65 000 экз. — ISBN 5-85270-333-8Вишневский А. Г. Лагеря, колонии и тюрьмы / Вспоминая 37-й // Демоскоп Weekly : журнал. — М., 2007. — 31 декабря (№ 313—314). — ISSN 1726-2887.Рогинский А. Б., Жемкова Е. Б.. Между сочувствием и равнодушием — реабилитация жертв советских репрессий // Уроки истории. XX век. — 2017. — 20 декабря. The memorial project The Last Address is intended to memorialize the innocent people who died as a result of the criminal actions of the Soviet state. In their work to create the memorial, civil activists rely on the 1991 Russian law "On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression". It defines the concept of political repressions, their time frame (from October 25 (November 7), 1917 to October 18, 1991), and proclaims the need to preserve the memory of the victims. In the framework of the project, an important moment for memorializing a person is his or her official legal rehabilitation, which demonstrates the illegality of the state's persecution of him or her.Вольтская Татьяна. «Стучать на мертвых им не страшно». Кто снял таблички «Последнего адреса» // Радио Свобода. — 2020. — 23 октябряВеселов Ф. Д.. Глава 11. Последний адрес: негосударственный мемориальный проект и политика памяти в России // Политика памяти в современной России и странах Восточной Европы. Акторы, институты, нарративы / ред. А. И. Миллер, Д. В. Ефременко. — СПб.: Издательство Европейского университета в Санкт-Петербурге, 2020. — С. 202—231. — 632 с. — ISBN 978-5-94380-289-8
The Last Address is a decentralized "networked" memorial consisting of many commemorative plaques installed in many cities around the world. They are created according to the principle of "One Name, One Life, One Sign". This means that each such plaque is made individually and is dedicated to one specific person who died as a result of state terror. The memorial sign is placed on the wall of the house that became the last lifetime address of the victim of political repression: the person was taken from it and never returned. The sign is a small, palm-sized or postcard-sized rectangular plaque, measuring 11 cm × 19 cm (4.3 by 7.5 inches), made of thick steel sheet. Its standard design was developed by architect Alexander Brodsky. Despite its minimalism, the sign is recognizable and expressive: it is a quiet, laconic sad statement. In the right part of the plaque in a simple "chopped" uppercase font, the text is handwritten in several lines, using stamps: "Here lived (-a) / <paternity name> / <family name> / <profession> / born (-as) in <year> / arrested (-a) <date> / shot (-a) <date> / rehabilitated (-a) in <year>". The exact dates of arrest and shooting (as well as the last address) are taken from the investigation file of the repressed. If the house is not preserved, the sign is placed next to this place, and the first line on it may read "At this place was the house where lived (a)...", "Next to this house was the house where lived (a)...", "Opposite was the house where lived (a)..." and so on. In cases where the victim's profession is unknown, this information is not placed on the sign. Occasionally in such a situation, the occupation, position or affiliation to an organization may be indicated. If a person died not as a result of a firing squad, then the line about death is modified depending on its circumstances. In the left part of the sign there is a small square hole, through it you can see the bare wall of the house, to which the sign is attached. It evokes an association with the photo missing from the card and symbolizes the emptiness, loss, formed after the death of a person.Вопросы и ответы. Фонд «Последний адрес»Мемориальный проект «Последний адрес». О проекте. Фонд «Последний адрес»Ларина Ксения, Пархоменко Сергей, Асс Евгений. Рогинский Арсений. Культурный шок. «Последний адрес»: кому нужна память о неизвестных жертвах репрессий? // Эхо Москвы : радио. — 2014. — 13 декабряШубина Мария. Мой адрес не дом и не улица // Booknik.Ru. — 2013. — 23 декабря.Пархоменко Сергей. Здесь люди // Коммерсантъ. — 2013. — 6 декабря
The plaques are installed so that they are clearly visible from the sidewalk. If several commemorative signs are placed on a house, project designers develop a special artistic solution for their arrangement on the wall.Поддержите: Народный мемориал «Последний адрес» // Права человека в России. — 2014. — 2 июля. Plaques are installed not only on residential houses, but also on buildings that now belong to public or private legal entities. For example, in the fall of 2017, a memorial sign of orientalist Richard Fasmer was unveiled on the facade of the Hermitage Museum (Palace Embankment, 32),Последний адрес — Эрмитаж // Радио Свобода. — 2017. — 27 октября. in the winter of 2018, the sign of accountant Alvina Peterson appeared on the wall of the chamber stage of the Bolshoi Theater (Nikolskaya Street, 17),ГАБТ представит премьеру оперы «Один день Ивана Денисовича» // РИА Новости. — М., 2018. — 7 декабря.Последний адрес Шухова. Оперу «Один день Ивана Денисовича» поставили к столетию Солженицына // Коммерсант. — 2018. — 11 декабря. and in the summer of 2019, the Novgorod Kremlin honored the memory of art historian Boris Shevyakov.В Кремле увековечили память искусствоведа Бориса Шевякова // Новгородское областное телевидение : телеканал. — 2019. — 24 июня. Placing Last Address plaques at specific places of terror serves to maintain a sense of continuity with the past ("it was here"), which in turn contributes to the emotional personal experience of remembrance.Эткинд А. М. Кривое горе: Память о непогребенных = Warped Mourning: Stories of the Undead in the Land of the Unburied (Cultural Memory in the Present) / авториз. пер. с англ. В. Макарова, ред. серии И. Калинин. — М.: Новое литературное обозрение, 2016. — 328 с. — (Библиотека журнала «Неприкосновенный запас»). — ISBN 978-5-4448-0508-4.Дубина Вера. Виртуальное место памяти и реальное пространство ГУЛАГа в современной России // Политика аффекта. Музей как пространство публичной истории / ред. Завадский Андрей, Склез Варвара, Суверина Катерина. — М.: Новое литературное обозрение, 2019. — С. 334—335. — 400 с. — (Интеллектуальная история). — ISBN 978-5-4448-1101-6.