By Ola Cichowlas — Ms. Cichowlas is a British-Polish freelance journalist who covers Russian regional politics.
Vladimir Putin has already redrawn the map of Europe. After the annexation of Crimea, no country sharing a border with Russia can feel entirely secure. In expanding territorially, the Kremlin believes it is rectifying past mistakes. With Putin having appointed himself as the Kremlin’s state historian, Russian revisionism is now a looming threat to Europe.
Putin’s Ukraine adventure has turned Russia into a nation of amateur historians. Moscow throws the word “fascist” at every possible target. So much so that fascism has acquired a new meaning in Russia. A fascist, in Kremlinese, is a person who opposes Putin’s politics – with possible links to homosexuals and the CIA – and who could infect others with this contagious disease. But Russian nationalist anti-Semites who seek to “liberate” lands Moscow “lost”? Well those, naturally, are honest, God-loving patriots.
Whilst Ukraine burns, the sacred myth of the Great Patriotic War (what Russians call the Second World War) is everywhere. This pseudo-historical version of events emphasizes the unity of the people and the state, not the state’s violence against its people. It stresses the allegedly peaceful character of Soviet foreign policy and underlines Russia’s role in the victory over fascism, implying Moscow should have the right to be part of the post-war world it helped create.
Unfortunately, Kremlin propaganda is making inroads beyond Russia’s borders. Ignorance of history as well as unwillingness to part with Russian oligarch money – has led many in the Western media and governments to be fooled by this whitewashed version of events. By doing so, they abandon Eastern Europe – once again – to Russia’s crimes.
Meanwhile, those Western voices critical of Putin’s aggression have rallied around the narrative that Putin is Hitler reincarnated. Western journalists compared Sochi 2014 to Berlin 1936, and photoshopped moustaches on Putin portraits on the front covers of European magazines (it does not help that Kremlin media publishes articles claiming “Hitler was good before 1939”). In their telling, the Russian president is attempting to re-create the Soviet Union, the Tsarist Empire – or perhaps both at the same time.
All sides have spoke of the resurgence of the Cold War and the re-freeze in Western relations with Russia. Politicians and commentators alike talk about the end of the post-1945 world order and “the end of the end of history”. Others have argued that, if anything, we are seeing the re-emergence of the 19th century imperialism of the “Great Game”.
Across the West, historical comparisons to the current crisis are now fashionable. In truth, however, Russian imperialism in the post-Cold War globalized world is something entirely new. Putin’s messianism recycles convenient elements of both the Tsarist and Soviet eras, but it does not completely fit either.
As the Kremlin appears increasingly unpredictable, we are increasingly looking to the past for answers. Western media looks to Russia’s history so often because we have been unable to define what Russia is today.
Thus far, Brussels has avoided crossing into treacherous historical territory. “Old Europe” is less affected – it has the good fortune of not sharing a border with Russia. But “New Europe” is trembling: memories of Soviet crimes are all too fresh and history is not on their side. Driven by its revisionism, Russia bluntly dismisses the suffering of its neighbours under Soviet totalitarianism. Refusing to face its difficult past, Moscow has instead chosen to invent a new one. Evidently, Putin favours a national history that is both painless and noble.
The cult of the state is at the core of the Kremlin-promoted popular history. Lenin once said “give us a hundred thousand teachers and we will turn Russia upside down” – today, Putin has formed an army of history teachers who pursue the Kremlin’s pseudo-history. His re-interpretation of the 20th century (and not only) has worked.
Why is it so important for the Russian regime to promote its version of history? Because controlling the past makes it easier to control the present. Young Russians who do not remember the Soviet Union and have come of age entirely in the Putin era are most vulnerable to these distortions. Even if Putin were to leave the Kremlin any time soon, his views would live on in the Putin generation.
The history curriculum of Russian schools – combined with the Kremlin’s propaganda narrative and alarming national rhetoric – is producing yet another brainwashed generation of Russian “liberators” willing to offer “brotherly help” to Ukraine. A decade of Putinist propaganda means Russians support Moscow’s imperialism. Frighteningly, an authoritarian regime backed by the vast majority of its people is much more dangerous than an isolated dictator.
Disputes in historical narratives are nothing new in international affairs. Putin’s revisionism, however, has gone far beyond rhetoric: from doodling on maps to deploying elite troops to these borders. In Putin’s language, the phrase “That’s history” is less a comment on the past and more a prescription for the future.
