The 20th century spawned a project of moral reckoning (Vergangenheitsbewältigung) aimed at confronting mass violence. Postwar institutions promised “Nie wieder” (“Never again”), yet scrutiny has been uneven: Nazi crimes were thoroughly prosecuted and memorialized, while abuses carried out as part of Soviet repression in Eastern Europe (and in Russia itself) largely escaped equivalent accountability. Today, Russia invokes its anti fascist victory to justify aggression in Ukraine, while the US leverages postwar moral authority to deflect scrutiny of its interventions. The result is an age of impunity: international law is inconsistently applied, and the promise of “Nie wieder” is sometimes used to justify more violence.
Inna Berezkina will present her project which reframes accountability not as a discrete legal endpoint but as a long, internal reckoning that unfolds within societies in the absence of formal judgment. The hypothesis: unaddressed violence resurfaces domestically in corrosive ways—eroding cohesion, polarizing politics, and distorting civic life. In Russia, glorification of wartime violence and repression is deepening social fractures.
Berezkina proposes that accountability can be reframed as a historical force that asserts itself even in the absence of independent courts. She suggests developing transitional justice approaches suited to societies without imminent democratic transition: strengthening civil-society roles, crafting political language for accountability, and preparing measures to repair social fabric and protect vulnerable groups. Ultimately, her project seeks ways to confront totalitarian and imperial legacies and to transform public consciousness so that accountability can operate as a historical force by shaping healthier, more resilient futures.
Inna Berezkina is Head of Programmes and Policy Director at the School of Civic Education. The School, one of Russia’s leading NGOs, was founded by Lena Nemirovskaya and Yuri Senokosov in 1992 with the mission to contribute to the development of civil society in post-Soviet Russia, CIS countries, and Europe by promoting ideas of responsible governance, democracy, human rights, advanced civil society, and the rule of law. Berezkina also serves as a contributing editor at Sapere Online. She is also an international advisor at Democracy without Borders, a member of the Antiwar Platform and People1st initiatives, co-author of the Sustainable Peace: Our View manifesto, and co-initiator and coordinator of the project Civic for Transitional Justice.
Clemena Antonova, IWM Research Director, will moderate the discussion.
