Moscow, Europe Publishing House, 2008, pp 424
The publication of the book, half a century after its first printing, is significant in two ways. Firstly, after the publication of the two-volume book on the Nuremberg Trials, the subject of Holocaust has been actually suppressed in the Soviet Union, so it is for the first time that the Russian audience is able to get to know the exceedingly meticulous study by Hannah Arendt. Secondly, it may seem distressing yet the subject of crimes against humanity appears to be more relevant in the early 21st century than ever, be it the extermination war in Sudan’s Darfur, the Serbian genocide and expulsion from Kosovo, or the already third bloody attempt by the Tbilisi authorities to create «Georgia for Georgians». To our deepest regret, the West is insistently trying to «privatize» the subject of crimes against humanity, using the Hague Court as a one-way instrument. It is the meticulous approach of Hannah Arendt, who painstakingly analyzes not only the progress of the Eichmann trial, but also all legal pitfalls on the way towards the known outcome of this trial of the incarnation of banality of absolute evil, that constitutes the fundamental value of this monograph.
