How Putin Weaponizes Memory Politics

“In Russia, traces of people responsible for mass killings and other Soviet era crimes such as mushrooms appear after autumn rains,” said Garosla Coyys recently.

With statues that commemorate the characters from Joseph Stalin to the founder of the Bolshevik Secret Police throughout the country, many Russians responded to more than just ignoring. One person told the BBC CNN Stalin, “unfairly hated it”; Another said, “Stalin is our history,” adding that “no one is perfect.”

“In Russia, traces of people responsible for mass killings and other Soviet era crimes such as mushrooms appear after autumn rains,” said Garosla Coyys recently.

With statues that commemorate the characters from Joseph Stalin to the founder of the Bolshevik Secret Police throughout the country, many Russians responded to more than just ignoring. One person told the BBC CNN Stalin, “unfairly hated it”; Another said, “Stalin is our history,” adding that “no one is perfect.”

Of course, history has never been fixed, and Russian President Vladimir Putin used this in his favor. His regime began a major project to reformulate the past (especially the Soviet era) to give legitimacy to its rule, justify the conquest of Ukraine, and to market itself as an anti -colonial power for the global south.

The articles below explore the use of Kremlin for the policy of memory – and its counterpart, “memory diplomacy” – and consider how memory can survive in Russia today.

Kremlin factory from discontent

A new history of the cold war unintentionally reveals Russian distortions in the past, written by Jaroslaw Kuisz.

The eternal flame is burning in front of a memorial for the Second World War, depicting the Soviet soldiers in a historic military museum in the village of Lenino, outside Moscow, on February 15, 2020. Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images

Moscow uses memory diplomacy to export its narration to the world

Putin pushes the date of the Russian review to enhance the effect of the Kremlin abroad and its legitimacy at home, as Jade McGlyn wrote.

People attend the memorial panels ceremony for the victims of Soviet repression on the wall of their former house in central Moscow on December 10, 2014. Yuri Cadubnov/AFP via Getty Images

How to remain the memory in Russia Putin

Russia’s dictator controls her past, Tania writes my son. But can the history that avoids live politics?

People waving Russian flags gathering to celebrate the eighth anniversary of Russia’s inclusion of the Crimea during an event at the Luzniki stadium in Moscow on March 18, 2022.Ramil Sitdikov/AFP via Getty Images

Ukraine is not the Putin War – It is the war of Russia

Care Gayls, Jade McGlynn wrote, wrote a disturbing picture of the support of the ordinary Russians for the conquest and occupation of Ukraine.

How Russia has invaded Wikipedia

Olga Bewzak writes that the Kremlin is a weapon of an alternative version of the site – and rewrites the facts of Putin’s war against Ukraine.