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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