Towards ethnography of archival silence: Romani memory of Nazi genocide confronts the Soviet records

Abstract

In this article, the author reflects on her ethnographic-historical study of the genocide experiences and memories of Roma and the identified gaps between archival and family memory. In order to illustrate these gaps, she draws on her case study of a small community of Roma in Vidzy, Belarus. The field research reveals the interconnectedness of Romani family memory and local memory, as well as the silence of Soviet archival records on the mass killing of a Roma group in a Vidzy forest. In the second part of the article, the author seeks an answer to the question "How does archival silence happen?" By following Stoler's proposition for the ethnography "of" and "in" archives, she trys to reconstruct the sociopolitical context of the work of the Soviet Extraordinary Commission, as well as potential tensions between the local population (eyewitnesses) and the Soviet state (representatives of the Commission). For these purposes, the author combines an engaged reading of the Commission's records with her field observations and other scholarly works in the field of Soviet studies. At a theoretical level, this article seeks to improve our understanding of the archival silence and its potential implications for memory. Additionally, it shows a potential of the ethnographic method in revealing, and even filling, archival silences in the case of ethnic minorities and indigenous populations whose memory narratives have been predominantly oral and who have not yet created their own archives.