Historian Every Saturday: Yana Prymachenko. History in the Kremlin's service (part one) (10.02.2024)
An academic lecture by historian Yana Prymachenko (the “Historian Every Saturday” series, part one) on historical policy and the politics of memory. Key points: history has become an instrument of the state that the Kremlin uses to justify imperial expansion; the Russian “cult of Victory” is a militarist quasi-religion in which Putin seeks to become the “new Stalin,” and the cult requires “Nazis,” found in Ukraine. Prymachenko stresses that a historian must debunk myths of any origin — both Russian and Ukrainian national ones. A source for the article on the cult of the “Great Victory.”
Key moments
- 05:00 History as a political instrument; Putin uses it to justify imperial expansion
- 1:05:32 The cult of Victory as a militarist quasi-religion (the Russian Armed Forces cathedral with a Suvorov quote)
- 1:06:39 Putin as the "new Stalin"; he needs "Nazis" — found in Ukraine
- 14:00 Three levels of history: public (museums), didactic (textbooks), analytical
- 16:30 National myths must also be debunked (example: the "executed kobzars")
- 18:48 2023: Ukraine abolished the Soviet 9 May → Day of Remembrance on 8 May