From the author: Recently there has been an increased interest in the history of our family. This interest is fueled by feature films and documentaries, in which one can often hear about a new interpretation of events that happened in our country in the recent past. Recently there has been a tendency towards increasing interest in the history of this kind. Interest is fueled by feature films and documentaries, in which you can often hear about a new interpretation of events that happened in our country in the recent past. And, of course, a reasonable question arises - “How was everything with me... in fact, with us, in our family?” Of course, we know and remember some of our history. On average, every Russian knows his family until the 3rd or 4th generation (i.e., up to grandmothers and great-grandmothers). But, what's next? Often “further” are unverified facts, approximate dates, names, and gaping “blank spots”. How did it happen that the history of a kind, today, needs to be restored? Under what circumstances has there been a shortage of clan history? Without a doubt, in almost every Russian family, there is a lack of information about their clan. And this has its own historical reasons. If we consider the situation as a whole, they all boil down to the following: 1. Over the last 100 years, Russia has not experienced the most tranquil times. Revolutions, a string of devastating wars, famines, prisons, political camps, collectivization (the list goes on) - claimed many thousands of lives of people who are, in fact, living bearers of the history of their kind. What they knew and could tell about the life of their family cannot be restored. This subjective information went with them; we can no longer ask their opinion, but it would certainly be important. 2. Silence by members of the clan of true information about the history of their clan. As a result of the change in the ideological system, an entire generation of people, fearing for their lives and the lives of their relatives, were often forced to hide their true names and surnames, belonging to a certain class, their nationality, etc. Needless to say, the descendants of nobles, white officers, clergy and other representatives of the upper class who remained in Russia, trying to hide the details of the lives of their ancestors, were reluctant to tell their children about them, and sometimes changed their history and surnames beyond recognition. A similar situation occurred in families with a “disgraced” nationality. At different times, on the territory of Russia, people of a certain nationality - Germans, Poles, Tatars, Jews, etc. fell into disgrace. This was due to the political situation in the country and to subjective judgments about them at the top of the government. Large groups of people united along ethnic lines were often transported from the central regions to the outskirts of the country. Belonging to a certain nationality could block access to admission to a prestigious institute or obtaining a well-paid job. The damage to the history of the family was that along with “forgetting” who I am, cultural features were also forgotten - language, national traditions, culture of a kind. It is also worth noting people classified as “enemies of the people” who turned out to be displeasing to the ruling regime, for all sorts of reasons. The reasons could be very different - a random joke, a suspicious relationship with someone “unreliable”, freedom in judgment, etc. This was often enough for the culprit and his entire family to be classified as “enemies of the people.” Subsequent actions of the authorities in relation to such families became commonplace - arrests, sending to camps, executions, placing the children of the “guilty” in orphanages and boarding schools. After these procedures, the children of “enemies of the people” often had to hush up stories about their parents, often renounce their relationship with their parents and change their last name to another. It is not surprising that to this day, it can be extremely difficult to obtain truthful information about the gender in such families. The older relatives, without realizing it, seem to be starting againfeel fear for themselves and their loved ones and, as a result, for a very long time they do not want and cannot talk about the real details of their relatives’ lives. 3. Passing on the history of a family from generation to generation was not part of the tasks of modern society. The state was considered young, with new outlooks on life, which means that everything that happened before the revolution needed to be reviewed and changed. A new post-revolutionary story with Red Guard heroes who distinguished themselves during the years of the revolution and civil war was joyfully welcomed, and talk about the soldiers who fought for Russia, for example, in the First World War, was practically not supported. The tasks of society at that time were global - to maintain the existing system, build communism, win the war, restore the country, etc. The importance of preserving and transmitting information about one's species was not taken seriously. At this time, the culture of small nationalities often suffered. Passing on one's “original” traditions was often impossible, and even the desire to speak one’s native language was not welcomed. Therefore, information about one’s nationality, one’s cultural heritage, and along with it, about the ancestral heritage and its characteristics was gradually lost and devalued. For comparison, in modern society, the topic of family history has been actively supported in recent years. Drawing up one's pedigree begins to be practiced already in the lower grades of secondary school. Archival data is becoming increasingly accessible - it is being digitized and posted on the Internet. It is possible to request information about your ancestors in the archives. People readily respond to the opportunity to tell about their family history in the thousands-strong march of the “Nameless Regiment” on Victory Day. The number of sites offering assistance in compiling a family tree in computer format is growing, searching for relatives on social networks has become available, and the number of requests for help to specialized sites and to the services of private obstetricians is increasing. Answering the question - Why do we need to know our roots? - I can say that there is no exact answer to this question. Each person has his own beliefs on this matter. However, based on many years of group work to reconstruct their ancestral history, I can identify the most common reasons that motivate people to undertake such work: 1. People want to know their history because they want to fill the existing “voids” in their ancestry. Yes, just to know. It turned out to be quite normal for a certain part of people - in a situation of peace in the country and relative economic stability - to begin to restore their history. They don't need to be asked to do this. They themselves, obeying some internal laws and beliefs, try to build a historical and logical chain of ancestral history. It must be said that building one’s pedigree is an extremely fascinating process. Many times I am convinced that as soon as a group member begins to collect his story, he charges all his relatives with this interest. There is something in this process from geological and archaeological excavations, and often all the activities to restore the history of the family resemble the work of a detective. A small amount of initial information can be very intriguing and encourage decisive action, and the unpredictability of the unfolding plots can be quite captivating.2. People want to deal with the unfavorable “ancestral legacy” and correct the situation. In such families, one can often observe a number of tangible symptoms that indicate great tension associated with keeping silent about a difficult situation in the family that happened sometime in the past. What is usually kept silent about in the family - about the existence of criminals in the family, about the murders of relatives by other members of the family, about relatives who were deserters during the war, about policemen among relatives, about soldiers who served in the “wrong troops,” etc. This “silence of the situation” is passed on from generation to generation, like a “skeleton in the closet.” At first.