The Russia decreed a day of national mourning

A place cursed as Katyn can turn into a cause of hope Hope for a Poland overall United in the dignity of his grief, hope for relations between the Poland and the Russia, hope for the Russia with Europe and with itself even more relations

In 1940 in the Katyn forest, the Soviets, under the order of Stalin, had deliberately chosen to eliminate a part of the elite of the Polish nation to "weaken" in the long term a neighbouring people they wanted above all control. In 2010, it is in the forest of Katyn just disappear again behind its President a part of the Polish elite. And if seventy years separate the two tragedies of Katyn, the elapsed time is "subjectively" much shorter than the actual time. Indeed, for more than forty years, the Soviet regime denied having massacred in the Katyn forest more than twenty-two thousand officers and Polish intellectuals, attributing responsibility for this crime "Nazi barbarism." During all the years of the Communist regime, many Poles, especially those belonging to the elites of the country, knew very well what happened. But they were forced to keep this truth at the bottom of themselves, not to contradict the "official truth". Katyn was a wound leveraged by the lie, the painful evidence that the Poland once more did not control its history.

Commemorate the past to exorcise him and go beyond, it had done in a joint ceremony the Russian and Polish Prime Ministers, Vladimir Putin and Donald Tusk, a few days before the tragedy. But the Russia is gone, since then, much later in "emotional daring" and the confrontation with its own history. The Sunday following the disaster, 30 million Russians could see television "Katyn", the film of the great Polish director Andrzej Wajda, who had been previously shown in a confidential manner.

The tragedy of 2010 conduirat - it to a form of historic reconciliation between the Russia and the Poland, a reconciliation that the denial of truth of the Soviets on "katyn 1940", it was impossible Today, Moscow, showing film of Wajda on a string of great hearing accepts finally fully and no return possible his historical responsibility for this crime. For the first time in its history, Moscow appears to be evidence of empathy for the pain of the Polish nation. The Russia decreed a day of national mourning.

Its significance for the future bilateral between Warsaw and Moscow, and beyond between Moscow and the European Union, the symbolic gesture of Russian leaders can have important consequences for the future of the Russia itself. We must be careful, of course, to dream. Vladimir Putin is not a sentimental and his emotion is calculated. And yet, fully recognize the responsibility of the Soviet secret services to Katyn, open a path that leads directly to Stalin himself, the INSPIRER of the crime. A Russia facing its history will be the same tomorrow In is reconciling with the Poland about the past, the Russia decided also his future policy otherwise its geography, to bringing the European Union and its values, expanding to the East the reconciliation key concept

Certainly it is only a small step, in contradiction with other. But there was something new that perhaps reflects a growing confidence of the Russia itself. Since the signing of the START II Treaty, she feels support in its international status. Since the last election in Ukraine who saw the success of the "candidate of Moscow", she feels support also in its regional status. May 9, 2010 the 65 anniversary of the end of the second World War (on the eastern front), Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel will be in Moscow next to Russian leaders, and this is not a small symbol.

Confidence in Europe, would grow in the East at the time where it is declining in the South