Second World War memory as an instrument of counter-revolution in Putin’s Russia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Following the pro-Russian president of Ukraine Viktor Ianukovych’s (Yanukovych’s) removal from power at the end of the Euromaidan, the European Parliament endorsed Ukraine’s right to apply for European Union membership provided it upheld the organization’s principles of democracy, fundamental freedoms, and human rights. Shortly thereafter, the Putin regime launched a propaganda campaign in Western media that portrayed Ukraine as a fascist, antisemitic state, often referencing Soviet Second World War-era anti-fascism and Russia’s ongoing commitment to postwar moral-political imperatives. This campaign escalated with Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which Putin declared necessary to “denazify” the state. Drawing on recent Kremlin discourse concerning Ukraine, this paper argues that the Putin regime’s memory politics constitute a tool of counter-revolution for their assault on the memory politics of the European Union. To this end, the study investigates Russia’s invocation of transnational memories of the Second World War and the postwar period in its war against Ukraine since 2014, focusing in particular on Russian accusations of Ukrainian antisemitism and Holocaust denial and narratives of Russian victimhood, or “Russophobia.”