Medvedev Creates History Commission

MAY 21, 2009 - Wall Street Journal by Andrew Osborn - MOSCOW—President Dmitry Medvedev has created a special commission to counter what he says are increasingly aggressive attempts to rewrite history to Russia's disadvantage. Supporters said the commission is needed to tackle anti-Russian propaganda in the former Soviet Union, an area Moscow regards as its backyard, but liberal historians called the initiative a return to Soviet-era controls. In a signal that the Kremlin is continuing its assertive foreign policy despite Russia's weakening economy, Mr. Medvedev, in a decree made public Tuesday, ordered the commission to investigate and counter falsified versions of history that damage Russia's "international prestige." Mr. Medvedev empowered the commission—comprising senior military, government and intelligence officials—to launch inquiries, unearth historical documents, and call government and expert witnesses, as well as formulate possible policy responses for the president to consider. The ruling United Russia party also has proposed a draft law that would mandate jail terms of three to five years for anyone in the former Soviet Union convicted of rehabilitating Nazism. Analysts say they expect it to become law, though it will only be enforceable in Russia. First under Mr. Putin, who is now prime minister, and now under Mr. Medvedev, the Kremlin has sought to boost patriotic sentiment and its own popularity by tapping nostalgia for Soviet wartime achievements. But while the Kremlin encourages Russians to celebrate the Soviet Union's role in defeating Nazism, politicians in several former Soviet republics denounce the Red Army as occupiers who brought their countries decades of totalitarianism. Russia in turn has accused those countries, including Estonia and Latvia, of rehabilitating Nazism, highlighting, for example, that some Estonians and Latvians fought alongside the Nazis. In Ukraine, attempts to classify a Stalin-era famine as ethnically targeted genocide have angered Russia. The Kremlin says ethnic Russians too died of hunger during the same period in other parts of the U.S.S.R., and that the Ukrainian initiative is a ploy to stir anti-Russian sentiment. Polish attempts to delve into a massacre of Polish officers at the hands of Soviet secret police during World War II have also rankled. Russian authorities have refused to disclose information about the killings from their archives or to initiate a new investigation. Estonia's decision to relocate a monument to the Red Army away from the center of its capital, Tallinn, is another source of tension. The Kremlin also has accused Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia of honoring those who fought alongside the Nazis by allowing them to hold public commemorations. Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin lawmaker and member of the new commission, said the new body wouldn't throw people in jail or blacklist historians whose analyses it disagrees with. Its priority, he said, was to challenge what he said were distorted interpretations of the Soviet Union's role in World War II. "There's an information war going on," he said. "This is about defining who the Russians were historically." The new commission will ensure the Russian view prevails, said Mr. Markov. He said grants would be given to pro-Russian historians in other countries to ensure their voices were heard. "We have to choose which history textbooks are telling the truth and which are lying," he said. Inside Russia, the Kremlin has already mandated certain textbooks for all Russian schoolchildren. Critics say the new books go easy on Stalin and justify Mr. Putin's political model of "sovereign democracy." Liberal historians said the commission initiative undermines Kremlin claims that Mr. Medvedev is less hard-line than his predecessor, Vladimir Putin. "One year ago Mr. Medvedev said he preferred freedom to non-freedom," said Alexander Cherkasov of human-rights group Memorial. "Initiatives of this sort have never led to greater freedom." Mr. Cherkasov compared the commission to Soviet-era bodies that had tried to establish a monopoly on various scientific and ideological truths. Earlier this month, shortly before Russia marked the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany with a military parade on Red Square, Mr. Medvedev said attempts to falsify history had become intolerable. "Such attempts are becoming more hostile, more evil, and more aggressive," he said in his online video blog. "We must fight for the historical truth." Historian and author Orlando Figes, a professor at the University of London, says the new commission is part of a clampdown on historical scholarship. "They're idiots if they think they can change the discussion of Soviet history internationally," Prof. Figes said. "But they can make it hard for Russian historians to teach and publish. It's like we're back to the old days."