The Concept of 'Genocide of the Soviet People' in the 'Victorious' State: Construction of the War Narrative in Modern Russia

• In Event: War, Liberation, Repression: Trials as Storytelling in the USSR and Post-Soviet Space

Abstract

This paper aims to situate Holocaust victims during the Nazi occupation of the Russian Soviet regions within the modern Russian propaganda device of the “genocide of the Soviet people” during World War II. The term “genocide of the Soviet people” was introduced as part of the federal Russian project “Bez sroka davnosti” (“Without a statute of limitations”), which started its activity in late 2018. Since 2020, more than ten open trials have been held in Russia to judge Nazi perpetrators who killed millions of Soviet civilians in the occupied regions of the Russian Soviet Republic during World War II. The situation changes constantly, and one of the latest ideas within this project is to establish an Extraordinary State Commission to establish the atrocities of the “Ukrainian Nationalists” in the current war. Even the usage of the commission’s title, which derives from the period of World War II, seeks to legitimize the official regime and present continuity with the Soviet-winner state. A comparative analysis of the available sources (recordings of the court hearings in different Russian regions and media publications) shows the mechanism of constructing “the convenient propaganda story” under the influence of the international political situation and the ongoing war in Ukraine with almost no place for Holocaust victims within it.

Author

• Irina Rebrova, Technische U Berlin (Germany)