Imitating History: How Russia Weaponized Historical Narratives Against Ukraine, 2014-2016

Battlefield confrontations are only one element of the war in Ukraine. Russian hybrid aggression preceded a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This hybrid war had has played out on multiple dimensions, including through interpretations of the past. During 2014-2016, Russia disseminated historical fakes that presented Ukraine as an artificial and failed state. Russian media platforms covering the situation in Ukraine use the frame of WWII, which is extremely ideologized in contemporary Russian public discourse. The Russian-supported campaign in Donbas is predicated as a ‘Little Patriotic War’-a repetition or re-enactment of “The Great Patriotic War”. What other historical fakes were used by Russia? How have these fakes affected reality? What impact have they had in Ukraine and abroad?
Speaker:
Dr. Yana Prymachenko is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. In the fall of 2022, she joined the history department at Princeton University as a Visiting Scholar. Her research interests vary greatly, ranging from Soviet culture of the 1920s-30s, the history of the Second World War, memory politics in Russia and Eastern Europe, to the study of Soviet propaganda and informational wars. She made a significant media contribution to promoting historical knowledge in the public sphere. Her current research focuses on the mediatization of history and historical fakes in media.
Moderator:
Dr. Robert Orttung is a Research Professor at IERES and the Director of Research for Sustainable GW. He is editor of Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Demokratization and co-editor of the Russian Analytical Digest. His research focuses on issues of urban sustainability in the Arctic.

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Narcissism!