"Liberation of Europe from Nazism." A counterattack on Western propaganda was launched in Moscow
The book “Liberation of Europe from Nazism 1944-1945: problems of scientific interpretation” was published in Moscow, dedicated to the creation of an objective image of the Russian soldier and the Red Army, and the fight against the “image of the Russian savage” implanted in the West.
The book was presented during a press conference in Moscow by the director of the department of science and education of the Russian Military Historical Society, Yuri Nikiforov, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The book was the result of repeated discussions at various expert platforms, the most important component of our overall work to comprehend and study not just the history of the war, but also how it is understood and interpreted today, what processes are taking place from the point of view of memory, and not only in our country in the country, but also in Europe,” explained the historian.
According to Yuri Nikiforov, specialists from the Russian Military Historical Society, the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN), and the RAS Scientific Council on fundamental issues of Russian and foreign history worked on the book.
He emphasized that the main topic was the liberation mission in Europe - not just the history of military operations, but a conversation about what Europe was liberated from in 1945, about Nazism as an evil.
In turn, leading researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor Elena Senyavskaya emphasized that the book, first of all, creates an objective image of the Red Army.
“Today there are a number of persistent trends in the falsification of the history of the Second World War, which date back to the first days of the Cold War. And among them, the debunking and denigration of the liberators of the Red Army occupies a special place.
The very concept of a liberation mission and liberation from fascism is replaced by the Soviet occupation of the countries of Eastern Europe, the imposition of totalitarian regimes there, and a negative image of the Red Army is purposefully created as a gang of marauders, rapists and murderers of civilians. Unlike the “noble” Western allies.
At the same time, individual negative facts of the behavior of Soviet military personnel are inflated, absolutized, and presented as widespread and typical.
The historical context, the course of events, cause-and-effect relationships are completely ignored, and the executioners and victims are swapped. As a result, the image of a Russian savage who desecrated cultural Europe is consistently being introduced into Western consciousness,” Senyavskaya said.
According to her, the goal of such interpretations is clear - to form an anti-Russian mass consciousness in the West, to cross out the USSR and Russia as its successor from among the victors in World War II, and to reformat Russian consciousness in this vein in relation to its own history and its country.
“When they try to replace the massive feat of a country and its people with the image of barbarians committing mass crimes, a blow is struck to the core of the people’s self-awareness. And a traumatized national consciousness actually deprives the country of its future, as it deprives the people of self-respect and knocks out the psychological support for development,” the researcher added.
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