History, Remembrance, Memory
Results of the Russian memory monitor
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
In Russia, the people’s “historical consciousness” and “collective memory” are shaped by the state. Television, the most powerful propaganda machine, and schools reproduce the central elements of Soviet ideology and an authoritarian understanding of the state. The pivotal point of state history policy is the victory in the Great Patriotic War. It serves to propagate the idea of the necessary unity of vlast' i narod (the leadership and the people) as a prerequisite for the nation’s survival and to justify the war of aggression against Ukraine. The critical reappraisal of Stalinism is on the defensive, the repressions and the Great Terror are being displaced in the population’s collective consciousness. The positive assessment of how the Germans dealt with the crimes of National Socialism is fading. It is being overshadowed by the idea that Germany is once again a hostile state that supports Ukraine.
(Osteuropa 5/2024, pp. 97–138)