Russia's never-ending war against "fascism". Memory politics in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict (original) (raw)

The Ukraine crisis and European memory politics of the Second World War

In Europe, commemorations of the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War have reiterated the existence of different national narratives of the historical event. These narratives can be grouped into four distinct memory discourses. Each discourse is dominant in a particular European country or region: Russia, post-communist East-Central Europe, Germany and the Western European countries that fought against the Third Reich. On 8–9 May 2015, the four narratives found expression in distinct European commemorative locations: Moscow, Gdansk, Berlin and London/Paris. The paper argues that, while the four narratives have existed for several decades, the Russian narrative has recently been reformulated with a more nationalistic rhetoric and used as a conceptual framework to explain and interpret the crisis in Ukraine. Simultaneously, East-Central European narratives have been radicalised too, while nationalist discourses and highly controversial historical figures have been subsumed in a new post-Maidan official narrative in Ukraine. This further politicised the memory of the Second World War, leading to dissonance between the Russian and the German and Western European narratives and, most notably, to a radical discursive clash between the Russian and the East-Central European memory discourses.

Accusing Russia of Fascism. Polemics around Russia's Belonging to Europe.

With memory wars between Central and Eastern European states and Russia, the Second World War has become a useable past instrumentalized as a currency for legitimacy on the international scene. These memory wars focus on who was fascist and who colluded with Nazism—the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1941 or the collaborationist forces in Central and Eastern Europe? And, subsequently, who are the new fascists advancing a revisionist interpretation of the Second World War today: Putin’s Russia or Central and Eastern European countries? What is at stake here is the recognition of Russia as having a legitimate say in European affairs because of the Soviet victory, or its exclusion for refusing to repent of its role in dividing Europe and occupying a part thereof. This article debunks the accusation of fascism attributed to Putin’s regime and offers to look at the label of fascism as a mirror game between the West and Russia in defining what Europe should be like and Russia’s inclusion or exclusion.

TRANSFORMATION OF THE EUROPE'S CONCEPT IN WWII SPEECHES BY RUSSIAN PRESIDENTS (2004- 2019

Slovak Journal of Political Sciences, 2020

Historically, the Europe's concept in Russian state discourse has been constantly transforming, due to current events. Nowadays, the concept's understanding can't be described without WWII topic-obviously a crucial point in the modern Russian ideology. To explore the image of Europe in this discourse, the speeches of the Russian presidents given on the 9 th of May from 2000 to 2019 were content analyzed. The transformations of Europe in the Russian state discourse about WWII as were as Europe's roles in the WWII were defined. Up to 2009 the differentiation between the post-Soviet countries and "far abroad" Europe was constantly used. After the Russo-Georgian war, and mostly after the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, the construction of a bipolar world started. Russian isolation can be observed in 2010-2019. Europe's roles have been changing. In early Putin's speeches (2000-2003) this topic seems not to be significant. Before 2008 Europe was described as both active and passive in the war. Afterwards "passiveness" prevailed. Thus, in the Russian state discourse, after 2008 the WWII was used to show the opposition between active/ strong Russia and passive/weak Europe, which provide threats to peace on the planet.