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Holocaust Remembrance, the Cult of the War, and Memory Laws in Putin’s Russia
Author(s): Koposov, Nikolay
Editor(s): Barkan, Elazar; Lang, Ariella
Date: 2022
Topics: Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust, Communism, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Memory, Law, Nationalism, War
Abstract: The chapter examines the Russian laws that regulate collective representations of the past and commemorative practices in the context of the conflict between the “cosmopolitan” memory of the Holocaust and the Soviet/Russian war myth. The author argues that protecting the Soviet/Russian cult of the war is the main objective of the government’s politics of memory, including legislation of the past. Attempts to integrate Holocaust remembrance into this cult, undertaken since 2008 and especially 2015, have resulted in positive changes in Holocaust education and commemoration. Its memory, however, is used manipulatively and remains peripheral to Russia’s war myth which is focused on the country’s military glory. This makes Russian laws the opposite of West European memory laws, which protect the memory of the victims of state-sponsored crimes.