Yuri Dud versus Joseph Stalin: A YouTuber Seeks the Source of Russian Urangst | Culture | '
"I do not know about you, but I've been hearing from my parents all my life: Be careful, do not stand up, it's dangerous, and anyway, we're little screws, nothing depends on us, and that's my parents Wonderful people, I want to understand: Where does this scary fear come from the older generation, why are they firmly convinced that courage, no matter how small, is necessarily punished? "
This question is the starting point of Yuri Dud's film "Kolyma – the home of our fear". In a two-and-a-half-hour documentary on YouTube, YouTube's YouTube star Dud investigates "Russian primitiveness" before the authorities – and with it the origins of political fatalism and social passivity of much of society.
The Great Terror and its consequences
Dud's thesis is: The causes are to be found in the terror of the Stalin era, the darkest and largely unresolved chapter of 20th-century Russian history. More than 16 million innocent people have been deprived of their liberty and health as alleged opponents of the regime and forced under inhumane conditions to work hard in penal camps, at least two million of them died (exact figures are still owed to historical research, many secret archives are closed so far). The whole country was shocked from the early 1930s until Stalin's death in 1953. However, proper work has never taken place, and so Stalin, in the eyes of many Russians, especially the older generation, remains an ambivalent figure not only with the genocide against his own people, but also with his victory in the Second World War Industrialization or the "great style" in culture.
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Juri Dud, however, is ultimately not about the parent generation. His target group are the younger ones. So the crucial food for thought for his "Kolyma" project was a survey, according to which more than half of the citizens of Russia between 18 and 24 years have never heard of Stalin's repression. No wonder: textbooks like official mass media avoid the difficult topic. "We took that as a challenge," says Dud in the intro to his film.
But who is this Yuri Dud – this 32-year-old who bores in old wounds?
Yuri Dud: from sports journalist to YouTube star
Dud is a prodigy of the Russian media world. Already in his early 20s, the narrow young man, who prevented an asthmatic illness from becoming a footballer, made a name for himself as a sports journalist. But Dud wanted more and could do it too. He became the champion of Russian digital journalism. Since 2017, his interview show "vDud" is running on his own YouTube channel with meanwhile 5.6 million subscribers. From the pro-Kremlin director Nikita Mikhalkov to the opposition politician Alexei Nawalny – nobody is safe from the cynical, witty and always extremely well-prepared interviewer. A conversation is a duel for Dud, whose outcome remains undecided until the last minute.
"Kolyma": in the footsteps of Urangst
With "Kolyma" enters Yuri Dud again new terrain. He goes on a search, which leads him to historians and local historians, but also to the descendants of the victims of terror. Among them is Natalia, the daughter of Sergei Korolev. The scientist and space pioneer was a victim of the Great Terror. With breathtaking precision and forcefulness, the dainty old lady tells of what her family and herself suffered as a child of the "traitor."
The terror did not stop: Yuri Dud in conversation with Natalia Koroleva
In order to physically trace the spirit of the time, Dud also travels to the places where the terror took place: with his team he travels 2,000 kilometers from Magadan on the Pacific Ocean through the icy landscape to Yakutsk, along the Kolyma River and its homonym Road that was once built by gulag prisoners. The word "Kolyma" is synonymous with the Stalinist camp system. The search for tracks mixes with high entertainment factor road movie elements; Meetings with locals provide regular relaxation between the horror episodes. A popsicle at minus 50 degrees? "Ice comes out of the fridge and is only minus 15 degrees cold – so I warm up!" Comments a young interlocutor.
Overcoming fear, shaping the future
"Fear is a sticky substance that is very hard to get rid of," says the "Kolyma" film Efim Schiffrin. The renowned actor and comedian was born the son of a terror victim in Magadan and thus infected by the lifelong Urangst bacillus, as he himself admits.
"'Kolyma' is not our past, it is our present," says Yuri Dud at the end of his film: "Fear is the main enemy of freedom." A liberation is accomplished through knowledge of the past and respect – to oneself and to others. "Only in this way can we make our country fit for the future."
"Yuri, forget the celebrities – fill the internet with historical work, that's what we need now!" Is a comment by a user, representing 15.1 million others, who have the "Kolyma" -film until now (middle) June 2019).
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