Have you noticed how the Russians are constantly trying to be "just like the other kids"? Henry Ford built an automobile assembly line - the Russians bought it from him. The Netherlands had its Diary of Anne Frank - The Soviets the diary of a victim of the siege of Leningrad, Tanya Savicheva. The Americans developed the nuclear bomb - the Russians stole it from them. NATO put ballistic missiles in Turkey - Khrushchev put them on Cuba. Samantha Smith visited the Soviet Union at Yuri Andropov's invitation and created a world media circus - in response the Soviets sent the uninvited but fluent English-speaking Katya Lycheva to the United States. Enron collapsed due to internal improprieties - the Russians labelled the theft of Yukos "the Russian Enron". George W. Bush destroyed two countries in the name of "fighting terror" - Russia did the same in Chechnya. The West installed peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia and later recognized Kosovo's independence - Russian "peacekeepers" invaded a sovereign country and recognized two statelets. The Americans are poking around in Russia's backyard trying to install missiles in Russia's traditional sphere of influence - Russia is enthusiastically selling arms to Latin America and establishing a presence on America's traditional turf.
Now here's the latest such story, courtesy of the RBK website, which we've found is often a useful bellwether of the Kremlin's thinking.
Russia wants a Holocaust denial law, "just like the other kids". But it doesn't really want that, so it's had to come up with a surrogate. Let's see... The Holocaust is treated with great solemnity as a horrible human tragedy that happened, as the Russians say, "during the time of the Second world war". What have the Russians got that's similar? Yes! The Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). Most of our readers are probably aware that while the rest of Europe was busy fighting World War II "during the time of the Second world war", the Soviet Union was engaged in a separate war of its own against Germano-fascist invaders. And the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) is absolutely sacred in all of the former Soviet Union. So, it fits the bill perfectly: solemn, horrible human tragedy, right time in history - but uniquely Russian, unlike the Holocaust.
So, Procurator-General of the Russian Federation Yuri Chaika,
instead of doing his job and finding the assassins of journalists and
lawyers or fighting corruption or prosecuting skinheads who attack
foreigners or soldiers who rape and murder Chechens, has come out with
a bold new initiative to declare denial of the Soviet people's
"achievements" in the victory in the Great Patriotic War a criminal
offense. But is GPW denial really such a big problem in Russia? Anyone
who's seen the child honor guards standing in front of eternal flames
in even small Russian cities, or the old men and women walking around
the streets with chests bedecked in medals, or the massive fireworks
displays all over the country on May 9, or the myriad hero-tanks on
pedestals in villages, or the massive memorial complexes such as
Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd
(Stalingrad) or the Piskarevskoye Cemetery in St.
Petersburg (Leningrad) or the relatively recently created Poklonnaya
Hill complex in Moscow
would find it hard to believe that there's any problem at all.
Everybody in Russia seems to regard the Great Patriotic War as the
greatest event in their country's history, so is there really any need
to criminalize something that doesn't even exist? Wouldn't it make a
lot more sense if Russia were to criminalize Gulag denial instead?
A translation from RBK Daily:
Yu.Chaika wants to punish with jail for denying the victory of the USSR in the GPW
Criminal liability may be introduced for denying the achievements of
the Soviet people in the victory in the Great Patriotic war.
Such a declaration was made to journalists by procurator-general of
the RF Yuri Chaika. "I consider that denying the victory of the Soviet
people - this is as a minimum a violation of the norms of ethics and
morals. In specific conditions, criminal liability can be prescribed
for this", - he said.
In such a manner, Russia may enter into the number of countries in which criminal liability is prescribed for attempts to reconsider historical events, associated with the Second world [war]. At the present moment, in a series of European countries denial of the holocaust - the mass destruction of Jews in the years of the Second world war - is criminally punishable.
In particular, a year ago a loud scandal took place in France when they sentenced extreme right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen to three months in jail suspended and a fine of 10 thsd. euros for a comment in an interview that the occupation of France "was not all that inhuman".
In Austria, where punishment in the form of deprivation of liberty for a term of up to 10 years is prescribed by the law for such a crime, the British historian David Irving ended up in jail in the year 2006. The court sentenced him to 3 years of imprisonment after during the time of his appearance D.Irving denied the fact of the existence of gas changers in Auschwitz.
Besides this, in the opinion of the historian, the scales of the destruction of Jews by the nazists during the time of the Second world war were exaggerated. He likewise asserted that Adolf Hitler knew nothing about the holocaust.
We will notice that criminal liability for such violations is introduced, besides Austria and France, in Belgium, Germany and Spain.
25 February 2009
