I did not notice: the current Russian government talks much more about the past than about the future. There is no development program, or it is dotted with very blurred characteristics. But the past is alive, day by day it becomes overgrown with new details, cemented into a more or less whole structure. And it is no problem that this construction has little relation to the real history of the country and the world. Even facts that seem to have become established in public consciousness are sacrificed to the concept.
So, the other day, Patriarch Kirill, addressing the participants of the procession in St. Petersburg, said that Peter I was fighting “Western influences aimed at weakening Russia.” According to the patriarch, Peter did not believe in the goodness of the West and opposed the Western trends to Russian traditions.
We, of course, know that in reality everything was exactly the opposite. Undoubtedly, Patriarch Kirill also knows this.
President Putin also knows that the executions in Babi Yar were carried out by the SS, and not by the “Banderov” at all. And if he does not know, he could easily get a certificate: after all, those who committed this crime are known by name. However, he remembered Babi Yar in order to instigate a crime under the general concept of the “revival of Ukrainian Nazism.” They say, we started a war with Ukraine to prevent the revival of Nazism capable of such terrible crimes.
in the entire history of Russia, as it is presented and studied today, there is not a single true segment left
Maria Zakharova, the speaker of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is at the forefront of the ideological struggle, declares with a blue eye: “Westerners fed the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine, and now they are using it to strike at Russia in the hope of getting revenge for previous failures – be it Charles XII, Napoleon, Hitler. This situation Russia’s global confrontation in its desire and desire to resist Western countries carrying aggression is no different from the Crimean War of the 19th century, the Great Patriotic War, etc.
Western countries carrying aggression and peace-loving Russia opposing them… Hitler and Zelensky are in the same row. It was not for nothing that Minister Lavrov, Zakharova’s boss, exposed Hitler: it turns out that Jewish blood also flowed in his veins.
In fact, in the entire history of Russia, as it is presented and studied today, there is not a single true segment left. It is all fake and mystification. It is in such an inside-out view that she is killing herself in the heads of the population, this is exactly how she is in the notorious history textbook, with which children went to school on the first of September.
In principle, the process did not start today. The Soviet government also relied on falsified history, but even then, in school lessons and on television screens, we were not taught that during the Second World War, the USSR resisted the Europe that attacked it, united by the idea of Russophobia. And now officials are talking about it.
Elena Bonner recalled: “Three years later (after the Prague events of 1968), Andrey Dmitrievich and I were riding in a taxi. The driver was young, talkative, telling something about himself, he said: “It was when the Czechs attacked us.” Sakharov was perplexed. exclaimed: “Who attacked whom?” – “Well, the Czechs are in Prague. Don’t remember what.
I recently saw an interview on TV on the streets of Moscow. And yes, indeed, there were people, and not at all eccentrics, who believed that in February of last year, Russia did not unmotivatedly attack Ukraine, but on the contrary, the Russian Federation was forced to defend itself from the aggressive NATO bloc that attacked it. I will not be surprised if gradually such a point of view becomes predominant. This is completely consistent with V.V. Putin’s statement: “We have not started any hostilities, we are trying to end them.”
There was not a single Soviet myth that was not based on real events. Everything was the fruit of an uncontrollable fantasy. Starting with “Aurora”, which allegedly started the Great October Socialist Revolution with its shot at the Winter Palace. At the same time, the crew of the cruiser “Aurora” debunked this myth in the Bolshevik newspaper “Pravda”. Don’t believe the bourgeois press, the sailors wrote, if we shot at Zimny, we would blow him to hell. And in general, the cruiser was under repair and could not fire in any way, either at Zimny or anywhere else.
And 28 Panfilov heroes! Historians know very well that the so-called “feat of the Panfilovites” is the brainchild of the journalist Alexander Kryvytskyi, inflated by his boss, the editor-in-chief of the “Red Star” D. Ortenberg. Kryvytskyi did not hide this: “During the conversation in PURE with Comrade Krapyvin, he was interested in where I got the words of the political engineer Klochkov, written in my bat: “Russia is great, and there is nowhere to retreat – Moscow is behind”, – I told him that I made it up himself… In part, the felt and actions of 28 heroes are my literary imagination.” Moreover, the myth about the Panfilov people began to burst at the seams even under Stalin, when it became clear that at least three of the 28 Panfilov heroes later became policemen and faithfully served the Nazis.
But how can the co-author of the history textbook, adviser to the president, Vladimir Medinsky, part with Soviet myths! “My deepest conviction is that even if this story was invented from beginning to end, even if there was no Panfilov, even if there was nothing – this is a sacred legend that simply cannot be touched. And people who they are doing it, the filth is over,” Medinsky said.
already after the beginning of the Second World War, negotiations on the accession of the USSR to the Berlin Pact were in full swing
In general, the topic of the Great Patriotic War is dangerous nowadays, no matter what you say – you will fall under the influence of a criminal article. And I still remember the times (not so long ago) when documents were published and freely discussed, testifying that in the fall of 1940, already after the beginning of the Second World War, negotiations on the accession of the USSR to the Berlin Pact – a treaty of “friendship and delimitation” were in full swing spheres of influence” between Hitler’s Germany, fascist Italy and Japan. There was a real prospect that the Soviet Union would join the Tripartite Pact and become the fourth component of the Axis. The parties did not agree on the details. But the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the secret protocols to it had already been signed, and Poland had already been torn in half. And further they acted together. The USSR attacked Finland and annexed part of its territory, Germany, in turn, invaded Denmark and Norway. Then the German army captured Belgium, Holland and France, and the USSR sent troops into Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and, under the muzzles of Soviet weapons, held unalternative “elections” there, as a result of which it annexed these territories to itself. In the days when Hitler ended the occupation of France, Stalin sent troops into Romania, after which he took Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.
Now read the official statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation:
“On September 17, 1939, a military operation by the Red Army began in the eastern regions of Poland. In the scientific community and the m media (especially foreign ones), this event is interpreted ambiguously, quite often openly propagandistic theses are broadcast with the aim of presenting the USSR as an aggressor on a par with Hitler’s Germany… As for the Republic of Poland, in the end, it was her own political short-sightedness that let her down.”
That’s right. Poland is to blame. Her short-sightedness failed her.
Just as Ukraine, with its cities lying in ruins, is to blame. It was necessary to know with whom he was friends. And it was not necessary to discriminate against the great and beautiful Russian language.
A few years ago, Maria Zakharova accused Great Britain of the murder of Grigory Rasputin. So she said, sternly looked at the British journalist: “You killed our Rasputin!” And, not letting him come to his senses, she added: “And Paul the First, too.” This is how she responded to the “blatant insinuations” of the British authorities, who accused the Russian special services of organizing contract killings abroad.
I wonder if children will be told in history lessons about these atrocities of the Anglo-Saxons? Medinsky should take note. Another brick in the slender building of great Russian history.
Andrey Malgin is a journalist and blogger
Opinions expressed in the “Author’s right” section may not reflect the point of view of Radio Liberty.