Paul Goble
Staunton, April 21 – There are many ways to rewrite history, and the Kremlin is now using one of the most effective: it is putting out its messages in television serials about the past. While these shows are ostensibly fictional, they in fact are more likely to reshape public opinion than any supposedly scholarly disquisition.
The latest example of this comes in a new 12-part Russian television series devoted to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Presenting itself as based on “real events,” the series traces the heroic but ultimately unsuccessful efforts of the Ukrainian section of the KGB to block a CIA agent from blowing up Chernobyl (newizv.ru/news/culture/21-04-2022/chernobylskaya-klyukva-v-rossiyskom-seriale-katastrofu-na-chaes-ustroili-amerikantsy).
Those behind this series are certainly aware that more Russians will watch it than will ever read careful studies, including Russian ones, that show an entirely different version of events and will accept this fanciful one without any concern for the facts. It is likely that as tensions between Russia and the West deepen, more such TV serials will thus appear in Moscow.
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