There is quite a lot happening across the Memorial network — and Memorial live is one way to keep up with it For more than three decades, Memorial has worked with history, memory and human rights — from documenting Soviet political repression to investigating present-day state violence and war crimes.

For centuries, Kurdish communities lived in the Caucasus. Under Soviet rule, thousands were forced from their homes and deported to Central Asia. Some hid their Kurdish identity to avoid persecution. Families rebuilt their lives in exile — only for many to be uprooted again by ethnic violence decades later. This year marks 89 years since the 1937 deportations began. These cards tell the story through the events and the memories of those who lived through them.

“My Voice Cannot Be Arrested”: letters from an imprisoned journalist open a new ebook series from Memorial Italia Ulviyya Ali spent years reporting on political trials and human rights violations in Azerbaijan, including for Voice of America. Detained since May 2025 on fabricated charges, she continues writing from prison despite threats and violence. Her letters and interviews are now collected in the first volume of politzèk — voci dalla zona, a series published by the University of Turin that brings firsthand accounts by political prisoners across the former Soviet Union to new readers. Edited by Giulia De Florio and Simone Zoppellaro, the book features illustrations by Gianluca Costantini, a foreword by Amnesty International Italia’s Riccardo Noury, and a previously unpublished account by journalist Javid Agha, a friend of Ali and a former political prisoner. The ebook is available free of charge in Italian. Alongside publishing these testimonies, the series aims to build support for their authors, help meet their needs in detention and contribute to efforts to secure their release. A fundraiser accompanying the first volume will help cover Ali’s legal expenses and basic needs in prison. An online launch on 29 October at 18:30 will bring together Giulia De Florio, Riccardo Noury and Javid Agha for a discussion moderated by Simone Zoppellaro. Starting with Ali’s case, they will discuss political imprisonment across the region and how people abroad can offer support. You can find the book, event details and fundraiser on the Memorial Italia website

How did a Bauhaus architect survive the Gulag and go on to design a “Little Berlin” in the Urals? In the early 1930s, a group of graduates from the influential German school of art, design and architecture followed its former director Hannes Meyer to the Soviet Union. They hoped to design towns where better housing and shared facilities would transform workers’ everyday lives. Among them was Philipp Tolziner, a Jewish architect from Munich. In 1938, he was sentenced to ten years in a forced-labour camp for “counter-revolutionary activity.” He later recalled that no one had explained what he was supposed to have done. Some colleagues left the country in time. Others were executed or died in the Gulag. Tolziner survived, continuing to design buildings during his imprisonment and after his release. In Solikamsk, a town in the Urals, the neighbourhood he designed became known as “Little Berlin.” Swipe through for his story — including how a dental chair helped him get off a camp logging crew

On this day, 9 October 1975, Andrei Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. A physicist who helped develop the Soviet hydrogen bomb, he became a human rights defender and later Memorial’s honorary chairman. He defended political prisoners, opposed nuclear testing and was sent into internal exile after speaking out against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. These cards trace his life and his conviction that peace, progress and human rights were inseparable

Today, October 7, marks twenty years since the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. She wrote about war, state violence and people with nowhere else to turn. Her reporting still helps explain Russia today — and raises questions those in power have never answered. These cards bring together parts of her story and her own words

What can remembering do? Memory activism uses remembrance as a form of civic action — preserving the stories of people affected by repression and bringing overlooked or silenced experiences into public space. It can mean reading names aloud, researching a family history, visiting a memorial site or creating an exhibition. It also opens space for conversations about how the past is remembered and how it shapes the present. This October calendar brings together dates connected to state terror, deportations and resistance across the former Soviet Union, as well as repression in Russia today. What do you remember or commemorate in October? #memoryactivism #memory_activism