Weiss-Wendt , Anton Putin's Russia and the Falsification of History: Reasserting Control over the Past (review)

Abstract

SEER, 99, 2, APRIL 2021 378 The treatment of the interview data thematically allows for a comparison of the variety of experiences in each of the subjects under review, but it also serves to obscure the single life story thread that might otherwise have been written. Helpful very brief biographical data on nine of the respondents, on whose testimony McKinney draws most regularly, is provided in the introductory chapter, but readers are left to piece together the remainder on their own. As is now becoming standard for academic texts, this book has clearly been produced with electronic access and distribution in mind, including the sale and download of individual chapters. Useful cross-references are included to direct the reader to related themes and areas of discussion in other sections of the book. One downside, however, is that whilst each of the chapters has its own short bibliography at the end, there is no overall comprehensive bibliography for the complete volume. Whilst the index provides an outline guide to specific topics discussed in the text, it is not particularly detailed. This volume is likely to find its place in Russian and Soviet women’s history and gender studies. As those of us who remain fascinated with Russian history will already be aware and as McKinney references the remark of one of her own respondents in the conclusion, ‘In Russia, everything changes in five years, but nothing changes in 200 years’ (p. 278). University of Gloucestershire Melanie Ilic Weiss-Wendt, Anton. Putin’s Russia and the Falsification of History: Reasserting Control over the Past. Bloomsbury Academic, London and New York, 2021. x + 326 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index.£85.00. The politics of history has become increasingly important for the current Russian regime. Anton Weiss-Wendt offers an extensive overview, covering all the central aspects — plus some rather peripheral ones. His account begins with the Commission against the falsification of history, established in 2005 by Dmitrii Medvedev and explicitly intended to combat what the Kremlin regarded as attacks on Russia. Instead of trying to ascertain the substance underlying such accusations against others, Weiss-Wendt immediately turns the tables on the Russians and argues that the Russian state is practising what it attributes to others: the falsification of history. Indeed, Russian officialdom often serves up dubious, one-sided, tendentious versions of historical events. Some statements made by former Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinskii, for instance, are simply ludicrous. Also very disturbing are the many examples which Weiss-Wendt gives of how the authorities REVIEWS 379 attempt to muzzle critical voices, and even persecute them. Although most of what he documents here is known from other sources, this is in my view the most important and valuable part of the book. That being said, I must point out several problematic aspects. Weiss-Wendt claims that he ‘strives for objectivity’ and avoids ‘emotional language’ (p. 255). According to a scholar quoted on the back-cover blurb, the analysis is ‘objective and the tone courteous’. I beg to differ, on both counts. Rather, Weiss-Wendt seems to be on a crusade, seeking to indict more than to explain. The book abounds in sweeping generalizations supported by only weak documentation.History politics inRussia is presentedasacentrallyorganized, top–down enterprise: ‘what may appear as an exercise in pluralism is actually a massive operation rigidly coordinated from the top’ (p. 43), but this flies in the face of much of the material Weiss-Wendt presents. To give just one example, we are told that around one hundred Stalin statues have been erected in Russia under Putin. If this was a ‘massive operation rigidly coordinated from the top’, surely that would indicate a conscious and deliberate campaign of official re-Stalinization. Indeed, Weiss-Wendt maintains that Stalin is currently making a ‘rapid ascent’ in the Russian public sphere, and that Stalinism has ‘penetrated the state’s foundational myth’ (p. 119). In fact, however, the vast majority of these statues have been financed and built by local Communist Party organizations, or a quack Ossetian activist who believes that Stalin was a fellow Ossetian. Many initiatives have been stopped or obstructed by (local) authorities; and due to the difficulties in obtaining an official...