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In the wake of the deterioration of relations between modern Russia and Poland, the Katyn memorial has become a scene for the contestation of historical memory. In order to play down the 1940 executions of Polish military officers in Katyn, the Russian government has granted belated official recognition to 8,000 victims of Stalinism in the Smolensk region. After being brushed under the carpet in the Soviet Union and for nearly the first three decades in post-Soviet Russia, their suffering has now been instrumentalized in the memory war between Russia and Poland.