Pamyat

Pamyat (Russian: Память, Russian: Общество «Память», Russian pronunciation: [ˈpamʲɪtʲ]; English translation: "Memory" Society) identifies itself as the "People's National-patriotic Orthodox Christian movement." The group's stated focus is preserving Russian culture. Its longtime leader, Dmitri Vasilyev, died in 2003.

At the end of the 1970s, a historical association called Vityaz (Витязь, lit. "Knight"), sponsored by the Soviet Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, established an "informal historical, cultural and educational organization" uniting activists-bibliophiles and amateur historians. One of the purposes of the newly formed organization was to prepare the upcoming celebration of the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kulikovo.

Some notable Vityaz activists in Moscow were Ilya Glazunov (artist), S. Malyshev (historian), and A. Lebedev (Colonel of the MVD). Similar groups were created in other regions of the Soviet Union. Later, loosely associated "informal" groups were consolidated under the name Pamyat.

At an internal meeting on October 4, 1985, Pamyat split up into several factions, many of which attempted to retain the same name as the "true" Pamyat. One of them, the so-called Vasilyev's group, led by Dmitri Vasilyev (a former worker in Glazunov's studio), A. Andreyev and A. Gladkov, focused its activities on the media.

On May 6, 1987, Pamyat conducted an unregistered, and thus illegal, demonstration in the center of Moscow demanding an end to the construction of an officially sanctioned memorial project at Poklonnaya Hill. It resulted in a two-hour meeting with Boris Yeltsin, at that time the First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

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