The Unseen Effects of Decommunization, Explained By Yale Professor

What You Need To Know:

✅ Everyone was either a victim or an oppressor under communism;
✅ There was a feeling in 1991 that communism was over and it would be possible to unravel the secrets, but that didn't happen;
✅ Older people in post-communism countries will feel like their biographies are being taken away from them; 
✅ The crimes of Stalin are irrefutable, but there are deeper aspects of the times of communism that shouldn't be forgotten.

Marci Shore, a Professor at Yale University, believes that it's very difficult for her to agree to any laws which rewrite history, which is what she feels decommunisation laws will do in Ukraine.
The crimes of Stalin are irrefutable of course, says Shore, but there are other sides to communism, deeper histories, like the street where one a couple shared their first kiss, which become a sort of tragic thing to see taken away if you decide to change the name of that street.
"What does it mean for older people to wake up in a city where they don't recognize the names of the streets, and so maybe they get confused about where they are." says Shore.
Hromadske International's Alexandra Azarkhina interviewed Marci Shore in Kyiv in October 2015.