Butovo and the Killing Fields
The physical geography of the martyrdom: the shooting grounds and camps where the New Martyrs died. This section treats the Butovo firing range outside Moscow — the “Russian Golgotha,” where over 20,000 were shot in 1937–38 and several hundred New Martyrs among them — and the Solovetsky camp on the White Sea, the first and most symbolic of the Gulag, where the imprisoned bishops issued their courageous declarations of 1926–27.
Tradition: Russian Orthodox
Overview
The New Martyrs died in particular places, and two of them have become the physical memorials of the whole persecution: one a killing ground, the other a camp.
The first file, The Butovo Firing Range, treats the NKVD shooting ground on the southern edge of Moscow where, in fourteen months of 1937–38, 20,761 people were shot and buried in mass graves — among them hundreds killed on church-related charges, of whom more than three hundred have been glorified. The memorial church built there and the annual patriarchal service have made Butovo the central pilgrimage site of the New Martyrs.
The second file, The Solovki Camp, treats the Solovetsky Camp of Special Purpose, established in the confiscated monastery on the White Sea islands — the prototype of the Gulag, through which many bishops and clergy passed, and the place from which the imprisoned hierarchs issued the Solovki Memorandum of 1926 and the episcopal response to Metropolitan Sergius’s Declaration of 1927.
Contents
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| the-butovo-firing-range.md | The Butovo polygon near Moscow; ~20,761 shot 1937–38; the New Martyrs among them; the memorial church |
| the-solovki-camp.md | The Solovetsky camp; the Solovki bishops; the 1926 Memorandum and the 1927 episcopal declaration |
See Also
- The Terror of the 1930s — the wave that filled the killing fields
- The Martyred Bishops — hierarchs who passed through Solovki or were shot at such grounds
- The Glorifications: Methodology — the Sergianism question the Solovki bishops addressed
References
- Applebaum, Anne. Gulag: A History. New York: Doubleday, 2003.
- Shkarovskii, Mikhail V. Russkaia Pravoslavnaia Tserkov’ pri Staline i Khrushcheve. Moscow, 1999.