REPRINTS
by Gregory White, Wall Street Journal
MOSCOW — It was to be a week of reconciliation, bringing closure after 70 years of lies and recrimination over the murders of thousands Poland's best and brightest at the hands of Soviet agents.
But when the Soviet-made plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of other top officials to memorial ceremonies crashed on landing in western Russia early Saturday, the bloodstained woods of Katyn claimed new victims. The spirit of reconciliation seems to have survived.
"The funeral mass that was planned for the souls of the [Polish] prisoners killed 70 years ago turned into a funeral for those who died in the crash," said Alexander Guryanov, a Russian historian who was at the Katyn memorial complex Saturday with hundreds of others waiting for the Polish officials to arrive. "It was deeply affecting for everyone, not just the Catholics."
After years of tension, relations between Moscow and Warsaw had been on the mend in recent months as both sides toned down the rhetoric and focused on areas they could cooperate, such as energy supplies. Last week's ceremonies around Katyn — where Soviet agents killed thousands of Polish officers in 1940 — were to help bring closure to one of the darkest chapters in Polish-Russian relations.
Since the crash, Moscow has mounted an unprecedented response, winning appreciation from Poles, both officials and ordinary citizens alike.
"The behavior of Russia's leaders and citizens demonstrates that there's been real change," said Adam Rotfeld, Poland's former foreign minister. "Many issues can be resolved on the wave of the empathy toward Poles. This may turn out to be a breakthrough."
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rushed to the scene of the crash Saturday, where he embraced Mr. Tusk after the two laid flowers amid the wreckage. President Dmitry Medvedev declared Monday a day of mourning. Russian officials also vowed full cooperation with their Polish counterparts in the crash investigation.
Ordinary Russians left thousands of red and white flowers — the colors of the Polish flag — at the embassy in Moscow and the crash site outside Smolensk.
Russian state television, which had relegated a hard-hitting Polish-made film about Katyn to a little-watched channel a few weeks ago, decided Sunday to re-air it in prime time on the main national network.
"We hadn't planned to show it since it's a controversial film," said a spokeswoman for the network Sunday. "But we're showing it out of respect for the Poles' tragedy."
In the spring of 1940, Soviet agents murdered thousands of captured Polish officers amid the evergreens and birches of the Katyn woods outside Smolensk. For decades, Soviet propagandists covered up the truth of what happened and Katyn remained an open wound between the two countries.
"The Katyn tragedy affected the relations between the peoples," said Natalya Lebedeva, a Russian historian who has studied Katyn for decades and lost three Polish colleagues in Saturday's crash. "The truth about Katyn is the basis of good relations."
Russia opened the archives in the 1990s, and then-President Boris Yeltsin whispered an apology during a visit to the newly built memorial complex. But in recent years, the Kremlin has been less willing to openly criticize the Stalin era and Katyn became something of a taboo subject.
That changed last week when Mr. Putin came to Katyn with his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk. Though Mr. Putin didn't apologize, his unprecedented visit seemed to show Moscow was ready to tell the truth about Katyn.
The shift came as economic and political ties between Moscow and Warsaw also warmed. They'd been in the deep freeze since Poland in 2004 supported the pro-western Orange Revolution in Ukraine and agreed to host part of a U.S. missile-defense system Moscow viewed as a threat. Washington dropped those plans last year, helping open the way for Moscow and Warsaw to rebuild ties. During Mr. Tusk's visit last week, he and Mr. Putin also discussed expanding gas and oil supplies, as well as other economic ties.
—Marcin Sobczyk and Olga Padorina contributed to this article.
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