Why aren’t ordinary Russians more outraged by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? Inside the Kremlin’s own historical propaganda narratives, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine makes complete sense. From its World War II cult to anti-Western conspiracy theories, the Kremlin has long used myth and memory to legitimize repression at home and imperialism abroad, its patriotic history resonating with and persuading large swathes of the Russian population.
In Memory Makers, Russia analyst Jade McGlynn takes us into the depths of Russian historical propaganda, revealing the chilling web of nationwide narratives and practices perforating everyday life, from after-school patriotic history clubs to tower block World War II murals.
The use of history to manifest a particular Russian identity has had grotesque, even gruesome, consequences, but it belongs to a global political pattern – where one’s view of history is the ultimate marker of political loyalty, patriotism and national belonging.
Memory Makers demonstrates how the extreme Russian experience is a stark warning to other nations tempted to stare too long at the reflection of their own imagined and heroic past.
Table of Contents
1. Taking Back Control of History
2. The Kremlin’s Memory Policies
3. Past as Present: The Historical Framing of Ukraine, Sanctions and Syria
4. Amplifying the Call to History
5. Living Forms of Patriotism
6. Attaining Cultural Consciousness
7. The Endlessness of History
What we’ve misunderstood about Russian motivations for the war in Ukraine
Two new books by Jade McGlynn make the disturbing case for why Russia’s invasion had a convincing historical logic to it
Review by Michael S. Neiberg
June 12, 2023 at 6:30 a.m. EDT
At least some of the West’s disbelief over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 came from the absurdity of Vladimir Putin’s stated justifications. The threat of NATO expansion toward Russian borders? Surely, he knew that the alliance — chronically underfunded; brain dead, according to French President Emmanuel Macron; and postured for deterrence — posed no peril to Russia. The presence of Nazis in Ukraine? True, a handful of Ukrainians recall their joint anti-Soviet operations alongside the Wehrmacht with a discomforting pride. Still, a nation that had freely elected a Jewish president seemed an odd candidate to revive Nazism as a political force.
To Western eyes, therefore, the invasion appeared to make no sense. But in two new books, Russia analyst Jade McGlynn presents a powerful and disturbing case that the invasion had a convincing historical logic to it, for Vladimir Putin and for Russians more generally. In “Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin’s Russia,” she argues that the invasion was “perhaps the only possible outcome of Russia’s preoccupation with policing the past.” In “Russia’s War,” she shows how deeply and fully the Russian people have accepted the historical narrative justifying this war. Taken together, the two books suggest that we have been looking in the wrong places to understand Russian motivations.
The Russian historical narrative, according to McGlynn, posits that when the state is strong and the people united, Russia achieves greatness, such as defeating Nazi Germany and launching Sputnik. When the state is weak and the people disunited, as under Boris Yeltsin, the West exploits and weakens Russia and its people. Russian media outlets thus treat Western support for Ukraine not as a response to the invasion of Crimea in 2014 but as a long part of a Western “war” to keep Russia weak and therefore exploitable. Why else, Russians ask, would a debauched West support Ukrainian Nazis if not to use Ukraine as a proxy for perpetuating the West’s centuries-long quest to keep Russia weak and divided?
McGlynn argues that it is a mistake to dismiss this policing of the past as mere propaganda or brainwashing. She argues that the regime uses history to “develop cognitive filters and heuristics” that create comfortable spaces for framing the present. Key themes include the insistence that Ukraine has always been an extension of Russia, never a nation in its own right, and that the Russian state has played a key role in protecting the Russian people from the persistent existential dangers that lurk outside the country’s borders.
The Russian state has used a heavy hand to enforce its view of the past, firing or imprisoning many of those who disagree with it. But as McGlynn shows in “Russia’s War,” the most effective methods are much more subtle. What she describes as “agitainment” in television news and a tightly controlled internet blur the line between fact and fiction. Popular literature and entertaining feature films, many of them funded by the state or developed by influential figures including the media star Vladimir Solovyov and the former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, promote “correct” historical themes such as Russian heroism and sacrifice. Multiple generations have internalized these narratives through school curriculums laden with tales of Western perfidy and historically grounded messianic narratives from the Russian Orthodox Church. This framing resonates with ordinary Russians, in part because it offers a heroic past to a people whose present and future are so precarious. It also offers a neat and tidy explanation (namely, the consistent enmity of the West) for Russia’s numerous shortcomings.
As McGlynn points out in “Memory Makers,” when history is rooted in an aberrant view of the past, the present is turned on its head. The Russian “heroes” fighting in Ukraine today are marching in the footsteps of the heroes of past generations and restoring Russia to the greatness that is — because of its glorious history — its true birthright. Russia becomes David, fighting the Goliath of Ukrainian Nazism masterminded by an all-powerful and incurably Russophobic West. History “proves” that the West is in terminal decline, while Russia is on a path to return to its natural position of global leadership. Russian soldiers are not agents of aggression and mass murder; rather, they are heroically defending Russians everywhere from a genocidal Ukrainian regime intent on killing them with bioweapons provided by the CIA. Taken to its illogical extreme, Russia is liberating Ukrainians from the degenerate Westerners tricking them into turning against their Russian brothers.
The war in Ukraine that McGlynn ruefully describes is therefore “Russia’s war,” not just Putin’s war. The Russian people, like those she came to know during her many years of studying Russia and living there, either support the war or at least identify with the historical justifications underpinning it. In the end, however, public support does not really matter. Unlike the West, where democratically elected leaders seek the support of the people they lead into war, Putin needs only their apathy or political neutrality. Their agreement with a common narrative of events is a more-than-adequate substitute for their active support.
In a tightly controlled dictatorship like Putin’s Russia, there is no possibility for an independent civil society to present alternative viewpoints, engage citizens in free discussion or search for sources to assess the government’s messaging. The result is not history as debate but history as a performative act of patriotism and a weaponized justification for an unprovoked war against a neighbor. As if to prove McGlynn’s point, historically based justifications for Russian policy and alleged plots by the West form terrifyingly explicit parts of Russia’s most recent National Security Strategy. Her insightful and creative analysis suggests that we are in for a long conflict not just over the fate of Ukraine but also over how differing memories of the past will continue to shape the future.
Michael S. Neiberg is the chair of war studies and a professor of history at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. He is the author, most recently, of “When France Fell: The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance.”
Interview with the Moscow Times
By Michele A. Berdy
Sep. 21, 2023
The Moscow Times: How did you get drawn into the very rich topic of memory?
Jade McGlynn: I was always interested in Russian memory, Russian intellectual history. But it was mainly during 2014 when the Revolution of Dignity was happening… We only had Russian TV, and I found the number of historical references and how detailed they were really bizarre. I was fascinated by the narrative creation.
As I began to research it more, I saw it wasn’t just about a narrative. It was something much deeper about creating a post-Soviet identity and a sense of what Russians can be proud of, what Russia is. Why is Russia a nation? What is its role?
TMT: One thing puzzling in that identity is the allure of victimhood and humiliation. You’d think it would be the opposite, that people would want to be victorious. Could you talk about why that is?
JM: That sense of humiliation — it’s there, it’s organic. If we think about the 1990s, clearly a lot of people did feel humiliated in different ways on a personal level. Either because they weren’t being paid properly or they had a sense of, “My dad was a colonel in the army, and then all of a sudden he has to start bricklaying.” You had a certain status and then it was just lost. And all of a sudden, the people who had the status were the “new Russians.”
You’ll find certain aspects of this in any society. But there’s this sense of personal humiliation that some political leaders are very adept at playing on and turning into something that’s a national or a political problem. And then it makes it easier to handle because rather than your own personal shame, you can deal with it on a national level, especially if you have somebody saying, “You know what? Russia is on its knees and now I’m getting Russia off its knees.”
TMT: How can you counter this? It’s not just a problem in Russia — it’s a global problem.
JM: The first issue is the platform. In Russia the vast majority of platforms are influenced, if not outright owned and controlled, by the state, even including online and the algorithms. Of course, that’s going to have a big effect because that’s something people are hearing all the time.
The issue that troubles, or interests me more because it’s less explored, is the issue of resonance. When I was in Russia, 90% of what I watched was Russian TV. But at no point did I believe it because it didn’t resonate with how I understood of the world.
So we need to also ask: Why does it appeal? And I think that’s a question that isn’t asked enough, often because people want to see their country as something different than what it is. Think about Trump or Brexit and people’s acrobatics to explain why people voted for them, other than just maybe they wanted to vote for them, maybe they agree with them on some level. It might be better to think about why that is and how we could target that with a more constructive narrative or build a story that could appeal to those audiences.
TMT: How has it succeeded so well in Russia?
JM: Although the state has been the main actor in doing this, in parallel society has often been involved in different activities, sometimes quite apolitical, genuinely about memory or respecting memory.
The state has been very good at taking over or at aiming influence or control over some of these activities. I’m really talking on the local level: different kind of children’s clubs, the Russian Military Historical Society writing manuals, and so on. I think this is one of the reasons why it’s been quite powerful. These initiatives are seen as grassroots, often because they originally were, but over time the state has managed to wield its influence over them. In different ways, sometimes quite benign, like with funding. We all require some funding! And sometimes in less benign ways with more hostile things or hidden agendas.
In the West people often ask, “Oh, okay, but what if people reject it?” If people see it as their own, it’s much harder to reject it. Russians are not silly, they know that the state overuses the Great Patriotic War. A lot of people really don’t like it. But that doesn’t mean that, broadly, the narrative that’s used isn’t appealing or meaningful to people or doesn’t have emotional power. Sometimes we focus so much on the outlandish Russian propaganda that we forget that there are a lot more subtle things going on that will probably have a more lasting impact.
Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin’s Russia
From Chapter Six: Attaining Cultural Consciousness
Beyond post-truth: history as allegorical truth
…In Russian, there are two words for truth: istina and pravda. While istina has connotations of essential religious or spiritual truth, pravda has ‘connotations of justice and “rightness” at least as much as of truth’. The conceptualization of truth being discussed in relation to ‘historical truth’ or ‘history as truth’ would be translated as pravda. The roots of this word in justice and righteousness point to a moral order rather than a legalistic one shaped by Western technocratic forces. The historical context here is also important: the Soviet legacy of ideological thinking, with its understanding of the world using reasoning based not on fact but on ideology, or an axiomatic premise, may also have facilitated the current government and media’s framing of lies and half-truths as types of ‘allegorical’ truth. If there is a tradition of deferring to, or at least not openly ridiculing or challenging, interpretations from authority that directly contradict objective fact and reality, this makes such patterns of discourse easier to accept when they re-emerge.
Blame should not be laid too firmly at the feet of Russia’s communist past, however, given that in some ways the Kremlin’s current allegorical approach can be seen as a departure from the Soviet era when the authorities expended considerable energy on making the ‘evidence’ match their story. If we return to the legend of Panfilov’s Twenty-Eight discussed earlier, then examining how the Soviet authorities reacted to efforts to demythologize the story reveals interesting contrasts with the approach of the current Russian authorities. As discussed in Chapter 5, the Soviet authorities suppressed reports, such as the Afanas’ev Report , which concluded that the legend was pure fantasy, with Leonid Brezhnev himself speaking out to discredit the report and attendant rumours. Such efforts would obviously have been more effective in the highly restrictive and restricted information space of the USSR, but they also reflected a concern with making objective truth appear to align with what the government wanted to pretend was true.
By contrast, the Putin-era Russian governments have displayed considerably less concern about aligning their version of history with that of objective fact. In 2016, the head of the State Archive, Sergei Mironenko was sacked after he published and promoted evidence that the Panfilov’s Twenty-Eight legend was demonstrably untrue. While this may appear to be a continuation of the Soviet approach, it is complicated by the fact that Medinskii himself, who was at the centre of the dispute with Mironenko, admitted that the Panfilov’s Twenty-Eight story was objectively false. In his view, it was not important whether the event happened: what was important was that it represents truth, that it functions as allegorical truth. In an article justifying his decisions with regard to this affair, Medinskii argued his case by claiming that absolute objectivity did not exist, that myths were also facts and that there were no definite events, only interpretations of history: ‘There are no historical conceptions that are the “one and only truth” or “genuinely objective”.’ The then Minister of Culture continued by arguing that history should be seen from the point of view of national interests. His confused interpretation of truth and history in this affair was encapsulated in the following quotation: ‘This legend has become a material force – more terrible and more wonderful than any fact from any real battle’. The director of the film, Panfilov’s Twenty-Eight, Andrei Shal’opa, a close ally of Medinskii, expressed similar sentiments: ‘The feat of Panfilov’s Twenty-Eight is part of our national culture, a myth that is so powerful it does not make any sense to argue about it. The historical dispute over Panfilov is senseless and immoral’. Thus, although the government and its favoured cultural practitioners frequently decried the risk of historical falsification, they cared little for historical objectivity: this was a question of moral correctness, of consciousness.
Taking this moralizing into account reveals a perverse logic to the authorities’ insistence on upholding and defending the ‘truth’ of official, often disproven, versions of history. The government’s dismissive attitude towards historical objectivity does not necessarily contradict their simultaneous invocation of history as truth or evidence insofar as politicians reference history as a higher form of truth, as an event that, even if it did not take place, should have done because it revealed something significant and accurate about the Russian people. The government presented the ability to see this ‘something’ as the purpose of studying history: ‘if you can’t see fact in the myth then that means you cease to be a historian’. In other words, myths like Panfilov’s Twenty-Eight, or the claim that the mass graves of Sandarmokh contain Soviet POWs, are presented and at least partially accepted as true not because people are certain these events took place (that does not matter) but because they are symbols of the greater truth of Russian/Soviet bravery and suffering in the Great Patriotic War.
By contrast, in challenging the symbol, one also challenges the truth that it symbolizes. Taking this approach, the crux of any matter resides not in the concrete facts of what took place in the past but in whether the historical episode being invoked reveals a deeper truth about the heroism of the Russian people, their sacrifices and their messianic global role to spread this truth. Applying such logic, to deny the veracity of a historical episode on the basis of specific documents, or lack of proof, is akin to denying the whole wider truth attached to it, an act that would be perceived as unpatriotic, as seen in the case of Sergei Mironenko. This is the process by which a person’s view of history is extrapolated into a choice between different realities and also different identities. In the broader scheme of cultural consciousness, people who focus on historical inaccuracies in (usable) Soviet war myths show themselves to be unconscious of this higher truth.
This approach to truth is in itself an assertion of Russian identity, of cultural consciousness, of the right to a different truth, posited as more powerful than fact. An understanding of history as a type of higher truth informs and is informed by the use of historical framing to present current events through a detailed historical analogy, as detailed in Chapter 3. This media technique familiarized audiences with the use of history as an allegory for understanding the present and the broader truth of what is happening in a confusing and overwhelming world. Ultimately, if cultural memory disguised as ‘history’ is the (main) vehicle used to promote the template of cultural consciousness, then cultural consciousness is the process by which you learn to discern the truth contained within this history. But while emotionally compelling, such approaches are based in insecurity, in the anticipation that facts will contradict the message. To avoid this investigation, everything is moved onto the level of emotional gratification while historical enquiry is delegitimized and codified, with consequences for the understanding not only of the past but also of reality. Unfortunately, this is not a process that is unique to Russia. The tendencies described in this chapter are observable around the world […]
Excerpted from “Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin’s Russia,” written by Jade McGlynn and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. Copyright © Jade McGlynn 2023. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Footnotes have been removed to ease reading. For more information about the author and this book, see the publisher’s site here.
Interview at the Kyiv Independent
Why did Russia invade Ukraine? It’s no mystery. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has told us many times himself.
We see infrastructure of NATO right on on our doorstep.
We will be aiming at demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.
In one of his latest historical outbursts during an interview with American far right commentator Tucker Carlson, Putin goes back more than a thousand years to justify his invasion of Ukraine. Between the weeds of historical myth and pure invention Putin told us in no uncertain terms:
I say that Ukrainians are part of the one Russian people.
They say: No, we are a separate people.
Hundreds of millions of people watched the interview in which Putin once again claimed that modern Ukraine had no right to exist and therefore Russia’s ongoing genocidal war was justified. While no historic land claim can legitimize aggression against sovereign territories Putin’s interpretation of history has very little to do with reality. I’m joined today by Jade McGlyn, a researcher, lecturer, linguist and a cultural historian specializing in modern Eastern Europe, particularly Russia under Vladimir Putin. She authored “Russia’s War” and “Memory Makers” focusing on Russia’s war in Ukraine in 2014 and Russia State Society relations propaganda and memory politics. In this conversation we’ll sort out historical fact from fiction and understand how autocrats like Putin look thousands of years in the past to justify unspeakable violence in the present.
Welcome Jade.
Thank you, thank you very much for having me.
So I want to start right away with the famous interview between Putin and Tucker Carlson. I mean that interview sparked a lot of emotional reactions and comments I mean I feel like I was losing my mind when I was watching it, but how does an actual historian feel after watching something like that.
For most historians I would imagine it’s an incredibly frustrating exercise but I think for those of us who specialize in Russia it was not a particularly surprising one because I mean you can actually go back to 1999 in 2000 and see you know pretty similar things of course we’re talking about history but in many ways what we’re talking about is cultural memory and in particular in Vladimir Putin’s case the official state memory and there’s a difference between history and memory history is the exercise of trying to find out what exactly happened he’s not interested in that um of course he would disagree but ultimately he’s not interested in that he’s interested in using the past to build a memory that unites the Russian nation and that unites it against others in a way that helps to legitimize his regime and I think that’s an important point that sometimes gets lost in the uh debunking of of his historical ramblings I mean it seems like he had a long time to be able to create that historical memory I mean he’s been in power for decades so I think it it’s hard for people to remember or anything else other than him continuing that exactly explanation of history or his explanation of history I mean Putin claimed that Russia’s history started over a thousand years ago with K and Rose a viking state that covered some of the modern territories of Ukraine Russia and Belarus. Do you think Russia actually has a claim on those territories?
No. And I mean even if Russia were the successor state – it’s not – but even if Russia were the successor state of the Kyiv Rus that would have absolutely zero bearing on whether or not it has the right to those territories today. Because there are inconvenient things, like international law, territorial sovereignty, you know, recognized borders.
But if we go back to the point – the idea of Russia as the heir to Kyivan Rus, this is very important.
It was actually written into the constitution in 2020, when you had the Constitutional Amendment.
So it’s codified within the constitution and it’s very central to pretty much all of the
I think we can call it an ideology at this point, that surrounds the Putin regime. Not just him personally.
The notion that Russia is a country, that is inherently a great power, that is inherently a superior civilization. And this all links back to the idea that Russia is the inheritor of Kyivan Rus, which then gives its linkages back to Byzantium.
Why this is such a political issue right now is because if Russia is the inheritor to Kyivan Rus
First of all that means in their reading of history that Belarusians and Ukrainians and Russians are essentially just one people – and we can see where some of those ideas have led us, unfortunately.
And also secondly it leads us to the notion that Russia is somehow distinct and special and an alternative civilization, that derives almost a historical essence.
And what’s interesting is, none of this begins with Putin. We can go back to Ivan Grozny, to Ivan the Terrible for example, and during his inthronement, he has you know Mongol caps, different elements like this, that he insists come back from Kyivan Rus and then after the time of troubles, of course for the Romanov dynasty, the idea that they were descended from the rurikovich line is very important to their legitimacy to the throne.
So almost consistently we see Russian leaders, with the exception of perhaps during the Soviet period, we see Russian leaders drawing on Voldymir, of course Prince Vladimir, or if you ask Danish people Valdemar, you know, for this legitimacy to rule.
And again I think it takes us back to that importance that whoever is the heir of Kyivan Rus is sort of besides the point.
The point is why does Russia need to present itself as the heir? Because if Russia just wanted to pretend it was the heir of Kyivan Rus, well, that would be historically inaccurate, but it wouldn’t really be causing a big trouble. The issue is – what do they want to do with that? Why are they doing that?
So when did Russia’s history begin?
I mean that’s a that’s a very tricky question.
If we’re talking about the Russian state in its current formation of course you could make an argument for 1991. That would be the easiest one.
Or if you want to talk I suppose in a more conceptual sense, then we could go back to Muscovy and the rise of Muscovy under the Mongol Empire.
And I think that would be a much it would be much easier to trace Russia’s historical Origins as a current state to Muscovy and the expansion of Muscovy by taking over neighboring principalities, then it would be to trace it back to Kev and Rose with which Muscovy has very faint historical links.
That’s not a thousand years ago, right ?
No, it’s not a thousand years ago.
So that’s kind of a bicycle that Putin’s been riding for a while, and it’s not really accurate.
No, exactly. And it’s such an important part. I mean, the idea of Russia as a as a country with a thousand years of history, it also brings this idea of constancy and a historical essentialism that appeals to many people in Russia. because of course Russia has seen you know in a century two, arguably three state collapses and so it provides this idea that there is a Russia that endures.
And that Putin is I suppose merely the newest incarnation of the leader of this Russia that endures.
Well, Putin’s main messages is that Ukraine as a state was artificially created. Are there any non artificially created states?
No, all states are artificial.
I mean again this comes back to that point because if we think about Benedict Anderson’s you know um very important book in this area Imagined Communities. his idea is that Nations they’re imagin that doesn’t make them less real but it’s you know people come up with different people who are united by a certain amount of factors and that’s different for each country
so in Britain it might be something like traditions and history
but in America it will be something more like ideas you know
in some countries
Germany traditionally . obviously it had some very negative effects – but Germany traditionally has often been quite ethnicity based for example. one’s heritage.
And the problem really for Russia is that it doesn’t have this imagined Community, it’s never been about ‘We the People’, it never had nationalism.
Unlike Ukraine which went through the pretty standard European experience of nationalism that we saw in Central and Eastern Europe sort of during the 1800s during the 19th century and a bit before.
Russia never had that. So instead of ‘we the people’ or ‘Res Publica’ you have ‘He the ruler, the State’ and that’s a very different conception of the nation – if you believe the nation is the state as opposed to believing that the nation is the people.
And I think you see it today.
People often ask me: There so many people dying – or – You know, so many people have died, how is this not having any effect on whether or not people think that Russia is a great state?
Because people think that Russia is a great state, not necessarily a great country to live in, you know?
Russians are presumably are not idiots. They can see it’s not a great country to live in, but that’s not how power or great power is measured in Russia – and never really has been.
So pretty much what you’re saying is that if Ukraine is an artificial State, as Putin says, then so is Russia.
yeah of course so is England so is every so Britain gosh Britain’s really very quite artificial I mean so so so many countries United States every single country is and essentially that’s a pretty standard view among I wouldn’t say academics but I think most reasonable people that that states are artificial constructs um doesn’t make them less real but they are you know imagined communities but the type of nationalism or the understanding of the nation that we see in Russia in and not just in Putin across his regime across the education system is one of historical essentialism this idea that there is an essence of the nation exactly and that that is what makes a nation and that Ukraine does not have this Essence in in his view or in in that view which is for me so bizarre because it kind of goes fully against what we’re just you were just saying right now that you know Ukraine is a lot more nationalist in a like in a way and has more of a people identity versus the ruler identity and I mean often when Putin talks about Ukraine’s artificial Creation The ukrainians Wills or opinions is not really never really addressed so do Ukrainian people or even Russian people have any place in his revision of history I mean not much of one to be honest I mean it’s very interesting if you watch there’s a number of films in 2012 it was the year of history and there was a big effort to basically remake Russian popular culture um with state funded historical propaganda and it’s very interesting there to watch um the depiction of ukrainians in the sort of World War II films that they started to churn out because the ukrainians are one of two people they’re either bad ukrainians educated Village idiots yeah although they’re the good ukrainians because they’re the little brothers who know their place or you have the bad ukra and they wear vishan they speak Ukrainian you know sometimes they have the kasac um hairstyle and they’re almost inevitably Nazi Collaborators you know in their characterization and so the Ukrainian people consistently since 2014 it’s divided into good and bad and what’s so fascinating is the extent to which so many Russians in within the regime within the security services lulled themselves to sleep on their own lullabies if we translate the Russian phrase because they genuinely did believe that they would be greeted as liberators and heroes in Harin in so many of these places by the good ukra yes by the good ukrainians who were essentially Russian and genuinely were going suffering from the hands of bad ukrainians exactly from the bad nationalists who are thought about it like that exactly who were extremists and who were funded by the West um so I mean the use of History it’s not just a legitimizing factor or a descriptive factor is actually a contributing factor um because as this propaganda becomes ever more radical and as Russia’s position in the world or as Russia’s position Visa Europe becomes ever more culturally insecure the historical superiority inferiority complex becomes ever more insistent and people are much more likely to cling to it there’s it’s gone so far now it’s very hard to just disentangle all of the propaganda I think it’s going to take a long long time and ultimately I think it’s something that can only happen when Russians are ready to do it um themselves I don’t think is something that can be imposed yeah I mean it’s a lot easier to believe that you’re the great saviors yeah than that you’re violent yeah exactly violent s this who are committing a genocide against people that you’re supposed to think are your brothers you know exactly you have a lot of family Tri and history connected yeah and that’s why I think you do see this anger sometimes even among liberal Russians about you know why are you resisting to ukrainians I mean that’s something that you’re know better than me Masha but you know a lot of my Ukrainian friends or family in Russia have have said you know that they said look oh I don’t know about the politics but you just sit quietly and if you stop resisting then it finish yeah it will finish and there’s a perverse logic to very abusive relationship it’s very abusive yes exactly it’s don’t make me hit you yeah victim L me yeah do you really think Putin actually believes what he’s saying like does he actually not know Russia’s or Ukraine’s true history if there’s such a thing as true history uh yes I think 100% he believes what he’s saying and I think one of the risks that many policy makers in the west have sort of made or one of the mistake sorry that they have made is to think that he doesn’t mean it that this is just something he says and that instead what he means is the exact same thing that they would mean you know because he doesn’t the Russian political establishment does not work according to the same measures of rationality that IR scholars in the US work um does not have the same conceptualization of security for example to give you just a very clear-cut example if we look at the Russian national security strategy we can see that um historical memory is mentioned 38 times culture is mentioned you know 40s something times let’s look at the American equivalent obviously there’s no reference to historical memory and there’s one reference to culture and is to Agriculture and I think it just shows the casm in the understanding of security and the understanding of how important these historical narratives are almost to Russia’s ontology it sense of itself its sense of being one that doesn’t mean we should respect it but we need to understand it in order to be a ble to to appreciate uh the regime’s motivations um in Ukraine and ultimately I think because if we if we look at what Putin has said about Ukraine you know even if we only go back to 2014 there’s plenty of evidence that this is not going to be solved by just giving him a little bit more of Ukrainian land this is about a war to reshape the global order and in Russia’s view it need it has the right and also it has the need is not significant it’s not it’s nothing real in his view so he’s allowed to do whatever he wants because he has a historical claim yes exactly he’s fully it seems like he’s feels Justified to be doing what he’s doing because he read a lot of files over Co yes I mean pretty much and because Russia is a great state and Ukraine is a colony it will therefore either be a colony of the West which he doesn’t want or it’ll be a colony of Russia which he does want so I think obviously the questions that you’re giving me because you you’re a Ukrainian and these um much um more in-depth questions that start from a much higher Foundation of understanding but often I find in the west when I’m ask questions I can just answer them with Putin’s own comments own quotations because it’s very easy you can just find what he says I think the bigger problem is that many even many Russia specialists in the west do not have a great command of Russian um and that also people just choose not to read him and choose instead to pretend there’s some general theory that explains you know the actions of states the actions of mankind and I mean I would love a theory that explains even how I act so it’s human beings are unpredictable human beings have their weaknesses and nobody acts rationally there’s always emotional identity elements and really this whole conversation around historical memory it’s not about truth it’s about identity it’s about ident and that’s why it’s so emotional and so hard to to overcome why are dictators so obsessed with history like why is that their tool that they use to create their narratives I think for a large part it’s a question of legitimacy because obviously dictators are unable to go well they’re not unable to they choose not to go to the people they’re unable to derive popular legitimacy for a long time in the Kremlin and even still now there was a very careful management of society and opinion polls to ensure that Putin remained a popular dictator because much easier to be a popular dictator right but it is because otherwise you have to spend a lot of money yeah but I think even now we can probably talk about Putin as a popular dictator that’s one element but after all then you have two points one is if you can look to history then it gives you some legitimacy to your rule like we were talking about with the romanovs like we were talking about with Ian grni but also um if you look to say somebody like Putin who has been in power for a very long time anybody is going to go a bit mad if they’ve been in power for that long I mean even in a Democratic Society um I wouldn’t have voted for her any way but many people point to the example of Margaret fer who just completely lost all sense and you know started to behave like a monarch um and for Putin one of the things that came up a lot in my interview say for example with people like f lukianov who’s obviously very close to that side of the Kremlin was that Putin is very worried about his historical Legacy and he wants to resolve in his words the Ukraine question Ro is the great solver the reunit yeah the re uniter reunify of Russian lands of the Russian people who were left outside of the borders so there’s also this kind of um grandiosity yeah that comes with being a dictator plus the legitimacy issue many people inw you just said yourself have distorted and weaponized history so what what is the difference I guess uniqueness in Russia’s Distortion of History so I mean I I’m not sure even if I would use the word uniqueness but I think there are two elements so one of them is the intensity of it it’s just simply more intense in Britain we often use World War II analogies too much in my view but the idea that you could send your child to a summer camp where they could learn how to do historical information historical disinformation blogging uh over the summer is a step too far but that’s something you can do at the stran set of of um summer camps in Russia just to give one very small example the second uh difference is the extent to which there is what I call historical framing so this consistent use of historic analogies that you know exactly so you can understand the P you understand the present through the past of course we all use analogies we all use historical analogies they’re very effective um Unfortunately they anchor very quickly so they’re very effective in propaganda but the I the way in which constantly history is applied almost like an ideology almost like this is the view of history and if you apply it to today we can see that oh we are the good guys again and we’re fighting Nazis and that then of course writes off lot of Russia’s sins because of course it’s terrible you know people can tell themselves well it’s terrible that we’re bombing but think how many of us the Nazis killed and now we’re bombing Nazis you know it makes it it’s just another way to put more on the menu to make the war acceptable or even diges yeah to to Ordinary People to ordinary Russians that actually brings me to one of the later questions but it really I was wondering what you think about it in the same interview with d cross and Putin you know justifi Na’s invasion of Poland but at the same time of course seeing Nazis invasion of Soviet Union as an aggression so is this inconsistency purposeful and if yes then why why two jump back and forth so this in a way is a very different to very different approach to memory and history that we might see in the what we can call the liberal memory Paradigm where you look at what’s happened in the past and if you’ve done something wrong you go and you say sorry for it and you make amends you face up to what you did and then everything becomes better with Germany being I suppose the sort of poster child of of that um coming to terms with the past but in Russia and in many other countries and in many other societies including in Germany you have I suppose what we might call an illiberal memory Paradigm which is not that it’s anti-liberal but it’s post liberal in the sense that these societies have experienced some liberalism and either these Societies or these sections of society have rejected it they um they feel that their needs on different levels are met by liberalism by the particularly globalized form of liberalism what relevance does that have to memory well what we see with a liberal memory in Russia in Hungary in many other countries is this attempt to try to get back to a lost State get back to something that was lost something that liberalism tried to destroy and therefore their use of History doesn’t need to be linear because you’re just trying to restore the good bits of the past so you can pick and choose exactly and of course the other issue is that this is again this is not about truth this really is about identity and here I would quote Vladimir madsky who was The Ghost Writer for Putin’s on the historical Unity of Russians and ukrainians that sometimes myths are truer than facts the history that’s important to Putin is history that doesn’t accuse Russia of anything bad and in which Russia is a hero or if something tragic happens to Russia is not the fault of Russians it’s the fault of some you know external bad actor probably the Anglo saxi and that’s what he needs that’s how he makes his historical arguments and that’s how they are logical to him so the idea that it’s inconsistent sometimes it’s not really important it’s not that’s the big difference I think with the Soviet Union is that there’s no attempt really about to engage in empiricism um so if we think about like the efforts that bnv went to and the and like the aarcs under brn of to hide the fact that the 28 panilo some of them were still alive and that the legend was untrue but that still shows a certain amount of respect for you know empirical Truth at least you know you have to hide it um here you’re just like no I like this part of history and that that one we’re just not going to mention people read my history anyway yeah they don’t really know what happened exactly exactly it’s an entirely different conceptualization of of Truth so do you think buen is succeeding in his Distortion of History depends what you mean I think if we’re talking about the tuer Carson interview then that was a definite negative for him because it was so intense do you think he’s Su succeeding in persuading people in Russia and in the west that Russia actually has a legitimate claim on Ukraine yes I think that unfortunately some of it does but not because of interviews like that but I think because of much more like the cultural propaganda in particular around Crimea and I think in different countries it works in different ways so for example in America it seems to me I’d be interested in your thoughts that the idea of Russia has a right to Ukraine because Russia is a great power that has a lot more um resonance than whereas in the UK the idea of Crimea and the idea of Kev is the first capital of Russia which is a statement that has been said to me a few times and that I cry every time by very intelligent people as well which is sad do you think that’s connected to the KE and Roose like yes just so that’s the capital and then Russia is the Roose which is I know I’ve been I’ve heard it before where people said that that’s actually a big issue that Russia’s claim on the Roose part because then a lot of people when you from English you know Roose Russian kind of sounds the same yeah yeah it does sound the same I mean it’s funny because we’re having a discussion about this yesterday and whether or not it would be better to trans literate Russia as a Russia because obviously yeah um because that would that is his actual name in Russian but I don’t know I mean part of I have a lot of sympathy towards the argument but on the other hand part of me thinks these are maybe efforts that would be better spent towards just getting more ammunition I guess most countries use mythologize you know history to create national identity but at what point did Russia move from you know just historical Obsession to actual violence so I think um the road for this became was laid in 2012 when you had that year of history when you had the foundation of the rosis um and the which first of which is headed by Vladimir madsky and the second of which is headed by nishin who is the head of the equivalent of the CIA so of the svr which again says a lot because you could not imagine saying that statement in America even even now with America Sports person so um that’s one aspect but I mean this functions all around and even if we look let’s say at the the temporarily occupied territories I mean what have been their priorities in mop to build a new roria exhibition um so a you know in order to impose this view of History to burn Ukrainian books to bring in Russian history books they understand the importance of this because you ukrainians from there exactly from who they really are and the most like obscene and horrific example of that is the is the deportation of the children of the orphans and yes exactly um so we see all of these different elements when did it become so militarized I think it was always militarized I think there was always it was always there in society when I did research uh fieldwork in Russia from sort of 2015 to 2018 with people who’ set up these military history clubs for children a lot of them they had set them up on their own account and it was based on on their own Soviet experiences just to create something for the kids to do then the state became involved and encouraged it further you know through funding Etc and so on but starting as you know we’re going to keep the children of the streets and just teach them how to use weapon instead yeah I mean the military history clubs they’re not the same as military patriotic clubs they don’t always have like that element of you you know like Y armia which is you know a terrifying Apparition but um the military history clubs they still basically about almost like dressing up as Red Army solders um learning about what your great grandfather or your grandfather did in World War II and and these this sort of identity element connection there’s a bit of War playing but it’s it’s less intense um but yeah a lot of that came from society and then in 2014 with the revolution of dignity that’s really I mean that’s when I began to research it that’s how I became an academic because I was just so fascinated I lived in mosco and and I only had Russian television and it was just so fascinating to watch it be like wow why have they gone off for 45 minutes about the O OA you know what relevance does that have to what’s happening today and but also seeing how it worked it worked even on friends who were anti-putin and then the hysteria the mass hysteria in support for the annexation of Crimea I it felt like this was a genie that might not go back in the bottle and even though it did go back in the bottle slightly for a while um it it didn’t last so from what you’re saying does it can we say like it all started at least in 2012 like that was them laying ground workor to prepare the society for all of these next actions that are violent and you know quite aggressive I mean I think yes if we want to be more specific but you could also look at 2007 the Munich speech the the federal Assembly address um you could and a lot of the projects that were launched in 2012 were actually set up in 2007 2008 but they just nothing happened with them or You’ look at 2004 the orange Revolution there were a lot of what we see in the propaganda in 2014 essentially was developed in 2004 the American Consultants actually to yanukovich were particularly Keen in pushing the use of the second world war of the Great Patriotic War as a kind of political tool um or you could go further back to 1991 and looking at things like Soviet ukraina the newspaper which also talked about the idea of an independent Ukraine is essentially like you know bandaan sort of idea um and throughout history so in some ways it starts wherever Ukraine wants to exist which is why it really can’t unless you believe that Ukraine shouldn’t exist which is obviously not a reasonable position from the vast vast majority of people insan yes um really none of this and by this I mean like this awful War none of it gets solved in Ukraine or through discussions of who’s the inheritor of Ken Rose it gets solved in in in Russia’s conception of itself and its role in the world which which needs be drastically different and until that point we need to work out a way to stop it from acting on its desires I know that some historians believe that debunking Russia propaganda only helps it to set the agenda instead of focusing on researching actual history where world’s biggest minds are just constantly have to answer the crazy claims from Putin or you know other Russian historians it’s a difficult one I don’t think there’s a perfect answer to it because if somebody is putting these claims out on a very large stage that has a you know very large reach you do have to respond to it if it’s a lie if somebody’s telling a lie about you you’re going to want to respond to it and explain no this is a lie here however at the same point I would suggest that not too much attention should be spent on it because of course you are then legitimizing it a bit I think you earlier you know use the example of if you have to if you set out 10 reasons why you know the world isn’t flat then at some point you give some legitimacy to the concept that the that the Earth is flat or could be yeah or could be that it’s at least a you worth entertaining and spending time discing so it’s it’s a difficult one I think sometimes what I would like to see would be perhaps um like a useful website maybe that debunked that could be shared you know around media that just debunked certain facts and also I think that like actually history instead of answering ex propaganda kind of go before it and explain it or encourage people to explore the history themselves because history is so rarely clearcut um you know and I think especially of this area yes exactly well especially of this area and of this era that’s so long ago I mean we really have what like a few Chronicles of Kev and Rose and we have no idea to the extent to which you know the monks who are writing about it were influenced by you know power their own bias yes exactly so I mean the idea that that it’s easy to just that we can just find okay well this is true and this is not no and I think it’s helpful for people to engage especially in this world that’s become so polarized it’s helpful for people to engage with the Nuance of like you know what we can’t know and also it’s actually just not really that important it’s okay to have a clear-cut answer because very often I feel like clear-cut ansers it’s a good sign that it’s not a really good answer exactly I agree and also because that’s not where legitimacy comes from it doesn’t matter even if Russia’s you know the 100% unproven if even if Putin has all of the historical documents he doesn’t but you know to show that Russia is the number one heir of Kevan rose that doesn’t give him any right to come and kill ukrainians and for his soldiers to come and rape ukrainians and to steal children and to conquer the country because that’s not where legitimacy comes from how does the world resist propaganda how how should heory be taught well it depends on which audiences we’re talking about we know that media literacy historical literacy and so on that can make a really big difference in Democratic or at least partly Democratic societies however in authoritarian societies it actually has the opposite effect because it makes people think oh I can never know the truth and to feel overwhelmed and as if they can’t ever really work out what’s true and so they should just kind of go with what feels right instinctively which is something that’s been molded by Propaganda popular culture etc etc so um I think differentiating focusing on your audience but yeah media literacy historical literacy encouraging people to not have black and white views um I think that the polarization on all sides is very dangerous um and and and that I think is probably the best thing I can come up with thank you so much thank you and yeah I just I really enjoyed talking to you yeah thanks for making me feel a bit more sane after watching that because I definitely was breing my hair out if you would like to know more about Ukraine’s history and how Russia has been distorting it for centuries make sure to watch our series of explainers Ukraine’s true history