Novels Offering Alternative Histories for Russia Extremely Popular Among Russians and Useful to Regime

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Feb. 5 – Many have commented on how the Putin regime has rewritten Russian history, but far fewer have noticed something else: Russians are snapping up books that offer completely alternative stories about key events in history that had things gone differently then, everything afterwards would have been entirely different.
    Sergey Medvedev of Radio Liberty says that the popularity of such alternative histories reflects the trauma Russians have suffered because of the three major events of the 20th century in that country – the 1917 revolution, Stalinism and World War II, and the collapse of the USSR (svoboda.org/a/roman-s-popadantsem-/33300518.html).
    And he cites one observer, Dmitry Nekrasov of the Center for Analysis and Strategies in Europe who says that he has identified 600 such novels in Russia, compared to only 30 in all other countries combined. Nekrasov adds that the absence of a clear plan for the future makes interest in alternative versions for Russia more interesting as well.
    There are many consequences of this interest in alternative histories but perhaps the most serious is the willingness of many Russians to accept new versions of the past offered by Putin and his regime, versions at odds with what they had thought was the case but far less radically different than the alternative history novels they regularly read.