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Vladimir Putin shows remarkable interest in history in general and World War II in particular. This article explores this historian-president's attempts to codify the memory of this war in an open attempt to transmit a useful past to the younger generation. It argues that top-down models of historical memory are of little explanatory value in the Russian situation. The president rides a wave of historical revisionism that he shapes at the same time. Putin's government successfully uses it to mobilize Russian society against critical minorities within and perceived enemies without. The far-reaching consequences of this politicization for the history of World War II are sketched in the final section of the article.
Keywords: Russia; World War II; Great Patriotic War; history wars; Vladimir Putin
A FAILED HISTORY EXAM
On December 24, 2014, Vladimir Luzgin, a resident of Perm in the Urals, failed a history exam with fairly high stakes. He did so unknowingly, by sharing an article entitled "15 facts about the 'Banderovtsy,' or: What the Kremlin Is Silent About." The article countered what its author perceived as Russian misconceptions about the Ukraininan independence movement in World War II, in particular the followers of one of its leaders, Stepan Bandera (1909-59).1
Bandera was born in Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In interwar Poland he became a prominent Ukrainian nationalist, incarcerated in the mid-1930s. He escaped prison between the German invasion of Poland on September 1 and the Soviet one on September 17, 1939, taking up residence in the German-occupied zone. There, he led the Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B, or Banderovtsy) after a split of the organization in 1940. OUN-B actively collaborated with German counterintelligence units on formerly Polish territory and helped set up two Ukrainian battalions, which participated in the invasion of the Soviet Union. Bandera himself was not allowed onto Soviet territory by the Germans, so the declaration of an independent Ukrainian state in late June 1941was leftto his associates. This step, however, sealed the fate of OUN-B in the German-controlled areas. Hitler was unwilling to accept independent nationalist movements of non-Germans on Soviet territory. OUN-B also did not endear itself to the Germans because of its assassinations of rival nationalists. The organization was outlawed and...