The regional study of Stalin’s legacy—a third perspective from the millennial generation.

The legacy of Stalin is commonly taught as a period of a complicated and tragic history, but to
many students going through the American education system, the notion of that one Stalin was never
questioned. If anything, the idea that there could be another version of Stalin seems preposterous from the
American perspective. Tinatin Japaridze, Columbia’s Harriman Institute alum, challenges not only the
idea of one Stalin, but the existence of two Stalins in her new book Stalin’s Millennials: Nostalgia,
Trauma, and Nationalism: the Russified Stalin who committed those notorious crimes against humanity,
and the Georgian Stalin who wrote poems for his dear mother.

In her inaugural book tour at the Harriman Institute on February 10, Japaridze shared how this
book was inspired and born out of her alma mater’s “legacy” assignment where Stalin’s controversial
legacy was researched. The two Stalins represent the controversial and sensitive conversation surrounding
the legacy of Stalin himself. Georgia, where Stalin was born and raised, holds the Stalin museum and the
other positive connotations that come from his charismatic character. While this perspective of Stalin is
unconventional to many Americans who learned about Stalin through his political narratives, Japaridze’s
new book aims to show how there is a larger dynamic and mythology that is associated with this second
Stalin: the third Stalin represents the legacy that he holds over the millennial generation, forcing many
Georgians and Russians alike to form a consensus on Stalin in an effort to form a consensus on their
generational complicity of holding his narrative.

The post-Soviet generation grew up not talking about Stalin nor the trauma that their families
endured due to Stalin’s political agenda. This personal element exists of Japaridze as well: her
grandmother lost every family member under Stalin’s rule, Japaridze was told that the history textbooks
that she learned from were “false” by her own teacher during the de-Stalinization period in Russia, and
none of her Georgian peers seem to engage in discourse about the impact that Stalin had on their lives.
Japaridze’s book aims to show the crisis of national identity that her generation of Georgians face: while
they were anti-Stalin and the violence that he committed to their people and family, anything against
Stalin felt anti-Georgian and anti-nationalist. The difficulty in condemning Stalin feels personal, but the
silence against his legacy feels complicit to his crimes.

Japaridze’s Stalin’s Millennials: Nostalgia, Trauma, and Nationalism explores the complex
geopolitical, historical, and national relations that Stalin’s cult legacy brings to Eastern Europe and
beyond. The in-depth analysis of Stalin’s legacy provides a perspective that goes beyond the American
narrative and the difficulty of establishing national identity for the sake of future generations.

the man of the hour via Wikimedia Commons