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Russia Builds a State Ideology Based on History

The keynote speaker was Alexandra Polivanova, representing Memorial, the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. 

Historians flee to preserve their freedom and professional integrity

Historians without Borders, together with the Aleksanteri Institute, organised a seminar at the University of Helsinki on November 28, 2024, entitled Politics of History in Russia – Controlled and Contested Memories, which assessed and analysed the politics of memory and the purposeful political use of history in the current Russian regime. The event was attended by both Finnish scholars and Russian expatriate scholars and other professionals in history and culture.

The keynote speaker was Alexandra Polivanova, an art curator, translator and human rights activist, who appeared as a representative of the Russian human rights organisation Memorial, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. She spoke about Memorial’s efforts and disappointments during Putin’s rule and assessed the impact of her organisation.   

According to Polivanova, the years 19892005 were the freest in Russia in terms of public debate on Stalin’s terror and the Soviet era in general. The Memorial network and organisation also flourished. At its peak, up to a million people belonged to Memorial. In the 1990s, the organisation was able to erect large and small memorials to the victims of political terror throughout Russia, often with the support of local authorities. Although the monuments were not very informative, many of them became places of public mourning and remembrance and had symbolic significance.  

At the time, Memorial stressed that research and remembrance of Soviet-era terror was first and foremost the responsibility of the Russian state. Among other things, the organisation supported projects aimed at establishing a state museum on Soviet terror and prison camps. Although Memorial and other NGOs around it advocated the restoration of the victims’ reputation by force of law, they did not, according to Polivanova, support the idea of a lustration of the late Soviet authorities and the administration of the Russian Federation, i.e. a critical review of the past actions of politicians and authorities in power. 

According to Polivanova, the role of the Memorial began to change during the 2000s. Although NGOs calling for an honest reading of history were noticed in the West, their influence in the Russian public debate began to wane around the same time. Yet, in the early 2010s, Memorial was still drafting a state-mandated programme paper defining the role and responsibility of the state in commemorating the victims of political violence.   

According to Polivanova, the main role of Memorial and other NGOs focused on history was that they were able, to some extent, to influence the state’s policy of commemoration. Instead, they failed in their attempts to extend a critical and open debate on history to society. In Polivanova’s view, people were more interested in their own future and activities than in the work of commemoration, which was perceived as belonging to NGOs and, above all, to the Russian state. 

Vladimir Putin’s regime, which with one hand set up monuments, with the other waged wars in Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine and began to persecute its political opponents. State memory policy and laws, which Memorial was also in the process of drafting, eventually turned into instruments of controlling citizens. Independent organisations were no longer able to protect open historical dialogue from the Putin regime’s politics of history, as they themselves came under pressure and were eventually criminalised. Only the state was left with the right to deal publicly with Soviet-era terror and prison camps. Thus, according to Polivanova’s interpretation, society was unable to react to, among other things, the speeches and writings defining Ukrainian history that Putin made before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This led to a moral disaster for the whole of Russian society, according to Polivanova. 

Polivanova sees the only somewhat positive consequence of the disaster as being that it brought to the fore issues that had not been addressed in the previous 25 years. This, she says, led to a revival of remembrance work in the circles of the Putin regime and opponents of the war, as well as other Russian human rights activists.   

The anti-war protests that have been taking place since the beginning of the full-scale war of aggression continue to take place on a small scale, but, according to Polivanova, they are mainly driven by human rights groups and local activists. Many continue to work outside Russia. On the other hand, the colours of Ukraine have also been seen in recent years on memorials to the victims of Soviet terror, so the commemoration work has taken on a protest and sympathy dimension in the wake of the war. However, the effects are likely to be mainly local and symbolic. 

The seminar Politics of History in Russia was opened by Erkki Tuomioja, Chairman of Historians without Borders in Finland.
Alexandra Polivanova said that despite the criminalisation of support for Ukraine, various commemorative events in Russia are still being used to remember the suffering of the Ukrainians.
Is there such a thing as objective history?

The first panel discussion of the evening started with a reflection on what the use of history in Russia is today. Professor Jukka Korpela from the University of Eastern Finland began by asking whether there has been a “real” or objective history anywhere.   

I think history is narrative and always subjective. Of course, Russia uses and abuses history to justify its policies and military actions. But this is one of the functions of history and it has been done everywhere else, Korpela said.   

Mikhail Nakonechnyi, a researcher at the University of Helsinki who moved to Finland from Russia, replied that of course there are “skeletons in the cupboards of many other countries”. The debate on the past is largely politicised and many societies avoid difficult topics. But even so, he said, Russia is a unique case. 

Millions and millions of Russians have been exposed to distorted perceptions of the dark pages of Russian history. Unlike in countries where institutions and society marginalise false histories and conspiracy theories, in Russia they have been normalised by those in power. They are used to control history through the media and school education.  

According to Korpela, in Putin’s Russia, which is neither a pluralist nor a state based on legality, the blatant use of history to achieve political ends has been easy. Since public debate is neither free nor pluralistic, history can be used in this way.   

In fact, history has always been used in the same way in Russia. Putin has not invented anything new, nor has he rewritten history, Korpela stressed. 

"Postmodern" historical awareness and black and white manipulation

According to Nakonechny, neo-Stalinist and imperialist historical discourse has dominated Russian online history forums since the 2000s. They have been followed by millions of Russians who have adopted the ideas as they stand. In addition, the state has provided large amounts of money to support the publication of fake history literature and revisionist history has also gained a foothold in universities.  

Nakonechnyi believes that the historical narratives of the Russian authorities are partly to blame for the mentality that some Russians have developed, which enables them to reject information about the atrocities committed by the Russian army in Ukraine.  

The main architect of the new politics of history has been Vladimir Medinsky, former minister of culture. He has often exploited postmodernist-sounding claims that there are no indisputable truths about history. Only politicised interpretations and competing narratives.   

If people have been made to believe that there was no famine in Ukraine and Kazakhstan during the Soviet era, it is easy to make them believe that nothing happened in Bucha either, Nakonechnyi compared.  

He said there are still brilliant historians in Russia who appear on YouTube, such as in the Memorial channel, but they cannot get their findings and arguments heard among the larger audiences in Russia. Only some historians have taken up the cause of promoting the politics of history of the powers that be, but it is they who dominate the historical discourse in the state-owned media.  

Polivanova interpreted that while history has become a weapon of the regime in Russia against a pluralistic society, Memorial and other NGOs have also learned to use memory and history against the abuse of power. 

The myth of millennial Russia was written in the 1700s

Korpela questioned whether Russian society will ever be able to deal critically with its violent history. According to him, the Muscovite Empire since the 1700s has been built on a narrative that will live on into the 2020s, regardless of changes in political systems, ideologies and rulers. At the heart of the narrative is Moscow as the centre of Russian power and culture. The same perspective, according to Korpela, has also strongly dominated the Western perception of Moscow and its relationship with other nations and regions of the empire.  

According to Nakonechny, all empires have difficulties in writing their history, but the most acute problem today is Russia. No other former empire is attacking its neighbours to restore its glory. In addition, discussion of issues such as Ukrainian independence and sovereignty is criminalised in Russia. 

One of the questions raised by the audience was why, during the war in Ukraine, the Russian opposition forces have hardly dared to tackle Russia’s colonialist policies. An example was given of how the Russian armed forces have mobilised a disproportionate number of soldiers from among minority peoples.  

According to Polivanova, there are still groups of activists in Russia who, on various occasions, also recall the suffering of Ukrainians, including by displaying, either openly or more covertly, the national colours of Ukraine.  

Korpela recalled that Russian colonialism was rather monotonous until the 19th century. The imperial power and the Russian Orthodox Church were interested in non-Christian peoples mainly to collect taxes and establish some form of local government. There was little European-style nationalist movement except in the westernmost parts of the empire, and it was only in the 1920s that Soviet Russia began to build modern nations from the largest ethnic groups in its eastern and southern regions.

The first discussion of the event was chaired by former Finnish Ambassador to Moscow and Berlin René Nyberg (left). Other panelists included Alexandra Polivanova, Mikhail Nakonechnyi and Jukka Korpela.
The state started monopolising history in the early 2000s

The second panel discussion continued around the themes of management of history and colonialism, but with new contributions and perspectives.  

Petrozavodsk historian Ilya Solomeshch recently moved from Russia and is now a researcher at the European Humanities University in Vilnius, Lithuania. He recalled that state control over history began to intensify in the early 2000s, when Putin decided to oppose pluralist historical debate. This has since been reflected in the state’s crackdown on public remembrance and the teaching of history in schools. 

Kati Parppei, lecturer at the University of Eastern Finland, highlighted the Russian Military History Association, which was established by order of the President in 2012. Headed by Vladimir Medinsky, it is the most influential of the Russian historical societies and its funding comes directly from the state budget. It represents an imperial view of history and seeks to promote patriotic historical education.   

In recent years, the association has focused on justifying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, it has outlined a new ideology of the state in which patriotic historical narrative is a central element. It also promotes a new paradigm of historical research in universities, which it calls ‘state-patriotic’ and ‘positive’ history. In practice, the Association opposes all critical and Western perspectives on Russian and Soviet history. It classifies organisations such as Memorial as ‘foreign enemies’.

Older people long for the past, young people need to be awakened to the future

Kirill Levinson, a history teacher also living in Lithuania, left Russia a couple of years ago and now works at the private Guliverio Akademija in Vilnius. He said his own relationship with history had become “schizophrenic”. On the one hand, he believes it is important to break the state monopoly on history, decolonise Russian history and restore the truth, but on the other hand, he believes historians should try to turn the interest of young people and students, both in Russia and in exile communities, towards the future.  

The lack of visions for the future is a very big problem. Both sociologists’ studies and surveys have shown for years that Russian citizens, regardless of their political views, lack a vision of the future. When asked, they either say they are uncertain or project the present into the future, expecting it to go on as it is forever. Alternatively, they hope for a return to some imagined golden age. 

Still, Levinson believes that in the long run, young people, many of whom now feel more solidarity with their loved ones than with the state, will be more interested in the future than in the past. This, he says, creates hope that a monopolised history may not have the power in the future that it has today.  

To support this development, we [historians] need to recognise that history books are no longer the medium through which young people are approached. We need to fight for their attention in the media such as YouTube, TikTok and podcasts, where young people are. We need to get the youngest historians involved.  

Levinson says that Russians are interested in the history of their families and are actively seeking information, picking up old letters and telling stories. But as soon as it comes to Russian or world history, they rely on state-monopolised history, such as school textbooks and television programmes. Russian citizens should therefore be encouraged to seek information not only about the history of their families, but also about their local communities and ethnic groups. 

The second debate of the evening was chaired by Markku Kangaspuro (left), Director of the Aleksanteri Institute. The panelists were Katerina Suverina, Kati Parppei, Kirill Levinson and Ilya Solomeshch.
Decolonising Russia's history will be difficult

Dr Katerina Suverina from the Future Collegium at the University of Konstanz in Germany suggested that the debate on Russian colonialism will be very difficult, as the public has long been fed the notion that the nation must save and recover the glorious history that Russia’s enemies, both external and internal, are taking away. In her view, harsh criticism will not work.  

They cannot understand the need to discuss decolonisation or the difficult Soviet past because they do not understand the prevailing reality. That is why it is important to choose carefully the issues and how we try to get the debate started.      

According to Suverina, the historical debate should start with the everyday issues that affected Russians, such as the life in Russia in the 1990s, which in many ways was chaotic. This dialogue could be facilitated by novelists and other writers of the period whose works have been translated into many languages and who are well known in Russia. 

According to Levinson, the state’s grip on history in the academia applies above all to the history of Russia in the 1900s and 2000s. Research in this area cannot be published, whether as a doctoral thesis or otherwise, without state control and intervention. As in the Soviet era, the study of older times and the history of the rest of the world is still a much freer field for the researcher.   

Solomeshch added that, as foreign funding is no longer available in Russia, historians outside the academia are forced to finance their work through private foundations which also have close links to the Russian state. Indeed, the panelists seemed to agree that Western historians should maintain some contact with those independent historians who try to continue their work in Russia.   

According to them, it would also be important for the Russian researchers who have Russian research materials of their own to be able to share them with researchers in the West. 

Politics of History in Russia Controlled and Contested Memories was part of the Historians without Borders’ project History in Exile: Dialogue on Russian Memory and Politics of History in the Nordic and Baltic Countries (HIX). The project is funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers from 20242025.   

The next HIX events will continue the debate on Russian politics of history, historical research and history education at events in Stockholm and Tallinn in spring 2025. 

Text and images:

Pertti Grönholm

The author is a member of the board of Historians without Borders in Finland and a University Lecturer in History and Adjunct Associate Professor (Title of Docent) of General History at the University of Turku. 

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