by Danylo Herasymov
Memory politics play a significant role in the life of the modern Russian state. This is proven by the fact that one does not have to dig further than the recent speeches of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He gave one such speech on the eve of his full-scale invasion of Ukraine (23.02.2022) and another more recent one, presented during the acceptance of the newly-occupied Ukrainian territories into the Russian Federation. Putin enjoys giving lectures on history and in Putin’s imagination, events are twisted into a chimeric mix of narratives. A Kyivan Rus that has nothing to do with Ukraine, apparently created by Lenin, but is the origin of Russia, that never in history attacked any state and yet became the largest state in the world, is the result of this historical imagining.
But modern Russian appeal to the Soviet past doesn’t try to restore the ideological Soviet, communist state – it needs the USSR only as a memory of empire, and this is the only characteristic that matters.
Putin’s interpretations of history serve a big role in his plans. Putin loves nostalgia – he basically feeds on it. It is nostalgia that led Putin to become an unchangeable leader of Russia and consolidate all the power of the state in his hands. But, restorative nostalgia needs a myth of the golden age – and a cultural trauma to overcome. Putin’s Russia finds a usable trauma in the collapse of the USSR, while for most of the former Soviet republics – in fact, for many subjects and nations of the Russian Federation too, perhaps, – the fall of the Soviet Union is the opposite of tragedy. But modern Russian appeal to the Soviet past doesn’t try to restore the ideological Soviet, communist state – it needs the USSR only as a memory of empire, and this is the only characteristic that matters. This is why the modern Russian state can canonize Tsar Nicholas II and his family as martyrs, and have the body of the men who led their killers honorably buried in the heart of its capital. All the contradictions of the different versions of Russia past do not matter, as long as Russia keeps imperialism as one of its main characteristics.
Following the collapse of the USSR and the ensuing economic crisis, the rise of criminality and the decrease of living standards for Russians were severe – but it was not the most horrible thing to happen to Russia. However, it was used as the central piece to construct the trauma around it, revive the sense of ontological insecurity from those who used to be the rivals of the USSR, and securitize memory politics of the state to filter out what makes this picture questionable. Hence, the heroization and cult of the Great Patriotic War override the history of WWII: the Russian state doesn’t like to recall the events of 1939-1940 and likes to portray itself as the victim. The wars that do not fit in such a frame – such as the Afghan war or Chechen wars are neglected – they were neither patriotic nor particularly successful.
This mnemonic frame makes it easy for the state to justify its imperial ambitions and manipulate the internal audience and give the sense of a “besieged fortress”. Manipulating history to show only certain parts of it is the best way to ignore the lessons of history. Putin considers himself a historian – he does not need such lessons. But what will happen to Russia after Putin?
I’m far from believing that like in the Lord of the Rings novels, with Putin’s fall the rest of his empire will collapse. A vacuum of power can not exist for a long time, and sooner or later, it will be consolidated by someone – or some group of people. Putin’s rule, however, made everything in Russia connected to him – and his end will surely mean destabilization for the state he built. What will come out of it is quite impossible to predict – but a certain thing is that history and memory politics will play an important role in this process again in two ways.
If, however, there will be an attempt to de-colonize the history and cast off the nostalgia, this will be the first beam of hope for the real changes in Russia – and the whole region as well.
First, memory will be used to explain what kind of state post-Putin Russia should be and how it was “meant” to be exactly this way. Depending on the narrator, this story may vary dramatically. What matters most, is the second way that history will be important in post-Putin Russia: it will be a marker. The current war in Ukraine may end up in a very different way, but at this point in time it is quite clear that it will hardly be called “victorious”. And loss in this war has huge potential to raise the feeling of resentment, which will strengthen the empirical narrative of Russian history. If post-Putin Russia will come to this, as it did numerous times in its history, this will make a new Russia. Despite the change of ruler the nature of the modern Russian state will remain the same. Therefore, without abandoning its empirical past and the destruction of the trauma of a lost empire, more autocracy and more wars are likely to follow. If, however, there will be an attempt to de-colonize the history and cast off the nostalgia, this will be the first beam of hope for the real changes in Russia – and the whole region as well.
Danylo Herasymov, University of Tartu
This blog is a part of a blog series written by the BAMSE Tartu intensive course students. The blog series analyses the impact of crises on the politics of history, challenges of democracy, biopolitics and energy security. This blog is belongs to the politics of history part of the blog series. Read more about the blog series on Bamse News & Events website.