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7/31/2019 DAVID ROGERS BBC - Russia Acts Against False History 24-07-2009
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-rogers-bbc-russia-acts-against-false-history-24-07-2009 1/3
Russia acts against 'false' history
It may become a criminal offence to infringe on "historical memory" about WWII
By James RodgersBBC News
What is worrying Russia? Why
is the country convinced that it
is the victim of a campaign to
make it look bad?
President Dmitry Medvedev
recently announced the setting up
of a commission to counter the
falsification of history. He said this
was becoming increasingly
"severe, evil, and aggressive".
"This is absolute poppycock," says
Robert Service, professor of
Russian History at Oxford
University. "History is all about argument. There is no absolute
historical truth about anything big in history."
Mr Service dismisses the Russian leader's suggestion that his
country is facing some kind of academic aggression.
Instead, he sees a desire to dominate, worthy of the most repressive
totalitarian regimes of fiction.
"President Medvedev, following in the path of his predecessor
President [Vladimir] Putin, wants to control history," he says.
"And he wants to control history as a means of controlling the
present. This is the classic George Orwell scenario."
'Hysterical reaction'
Dmitry Medvedev believes there is an anti-Russian bias inthe Western media
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Many Russians, though, agree with their president.
Natalia Narochnitskaya, a former deputy in the Russian parliament
and now a member of the new Historical Truth Commission, says
that she is surprised by what she
terms the "almost hysterical
reaction" in the West.
"In the Western media especially,
there is a certain prejudice
against Russia and Russian
history," she says.
"They always feel that Russia
since, you know, Ivan the
Terrible, is a certain country
which is off the European
civilisation."
Ask a few more questions,
though, and these two apparently
separate views begin to converge.
At least, they agree on what the key issue is - World War II. And
here lies the clue as to the real reason for the establishment of the
new commission.
This is what appears to anger today's Russian historical
establishment: accounts of Red Army crimes on the march to Berlin;
assertions by the Baltic countries and others in Eastern Europe that
Soviet forces came as occupiers as much as liberators; any
suggestion that Stalin's Soviet Union and Nazi Germany wereanything but complete opposites and bitter enemies.
Here, perhaps, there is a clue as to the timing of the commission's
founding.
Next month sees the 70th anniversary of the non-aggression pact
between the USSR and Hitler's Germany, something Ms
Narochnitskaya expects the West to make a lot of noise about.
"In August there will be such a yelling about the Molotov-Ribbentrop
Pact, saying that that was the step that led to the Second World
War, and that Germany and the Soviet Union were two equal,disgusting, totalitarian monsters."
Nationalist sentiment
Why does this matter today? Do these arguments have any great
importance beyond the walls of
universities? In Russia, the
answer is yes.
The country sees its victory over
Hitler's forces as the greatest
moment of the 20th Century.
The war is sometimes discussed in the news media as if it were a
In August there will be such a yelling about the
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, saying that that was the
step that led to the Second World War
Natalia Narochnitskaya, member of the Historical Truth
Commission
So many people are speaking about strong,
Orthodox Russia, military power... The commission is
partly a response to this atmosphere
Tamara Eidelman
Moscow history teacher
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recent event, not increasingly distant history.
Any attempt to tarnish the glory of that triumph is seen as a
deliberate attempt to make Russia look bad.
Russia's past haunts its present. Recognising that, the authorities
want to rule the version of the past which dominates today.
Tamara Eidelman, who teaches history at a Moscow High School,
feels surrounded by nationalist
sentiment.
"So many people are speaking
about strong, Orthodox Russia,
military power," she says.
"It is something that is very strong
in historical tradition and in
popular opinion. This commission
is partly a response to this
atmosphere."
The creation of this commission seems to go to the heart of what
troubles modern Russia.
The chaos which followed the collapse of communism left many
Russians deeply distrustful of politics and officialdom.
President Medvedev has complained of the corruption and "legal
nihilism" which plague his country.
Russia's leaders today know that they need this shining, sacred,
memory of victory to give their people something to believe in.
In the near future, it may even be backed up in law.
The Russian parliament is on its summer break at the moment, butlegislation is being considered - legislation that would make it a
criminal offence to "infringe on historical memory in relation to
events which took place in the Second World War".
James Rodgers was formerly the BBC's Moscow correspondent.
The authorities want to rule the version of the past whichdominates today