” Lhe main resource of Russia’s power and future lies in our historical memory,” Putin declared in 2013 before the first congress of the Russian Society of Military History, which he had just set up. The objective of this organization? Silence any critical speech on Russian history, especially military. When a head of state conditions his policy on the use of the past, when he ties his power to memory alone, we are indeed in a totalitarian and terrifying vision which aims to ensure his hold over the entire chain of time like this emperor Chinese, Qin Shi Huang, who tried to destroy all the books.
This usage, as we know, is at the heart of Russian propaganda in the current war. As Nicolas Werth, eminent Sovietologist, pr…