Russia Must Establish a State Institute of Historical Memory to Combat Revisionism on World War II, Kolerov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 10 – Just as in Lenin’s day when the Soviet Union stood alone surrounded by enemies, so too today, the Russian Federation is surrounded by enemies who want to revise the true history of World War II, Modest Kolerov says; and to defeat these revisionist forces abroad and at home, Moscow must establish a State Institute of Historical Memory.

            Russia desperately needs “an internal mobilization of social, scholarly and cultural forces for the preservation of the Great Fatherland War,” the editor-in-chief of the Regnum news agency says; “and the instrument of such mobilization can be only a state institute” charged with doing just that (regnum.ru/news/society/2849795.html).

            The primary focus of such an institution, Kolerov continues, must be on foreign revisionists, but the struggle for historical truth is also taking place within Russia despite the overwhelming support of the Russian people for truth about the conflict as can be seen by efforts to honor Mannerheim, Vlasov and Krasnov.

            “The Russian Military-History Society has been able to achieve many positive results, despite Medynsky’s leadership, and in Russia there are other good examples of work in the area of preservation of historical memory,” he suggests. But “all the same, the country cannot cope with the re-writing of history if an institute specializing in this specific direction isn’t created.”

            Kolerov’s Regnum news agency regularly publishes articles attacking what it says are revisionist discussions of World War II and defends the official version of Soviet history, including the supposed correctness of Stalin’s policies at all stages.  It is not beyond imagining that he sees himself or one of his acolytes as the head of the institute he is proposing.