The politics of memory and the task of the historian By Jakob Tanner

https://www.academia.edu/121983331/The_politics_of_memory_and_the_task_of_the_historian?email_work_card=title and the Task of Historians 13.1 History as a weapon Putin's attack on Ukraine is also a propaganda war that is being fought around the globe.l Russia prepared far in advance the ideological terrain on which the armored units advanced toward Kiev on February 24,2022. The attempt to conquer the neighboring country was based on a military-historical projection of power in which words and actions worked together synergistically. According to the model of a self-fulfilling prophecy, a manipulated historical narrative and the military foray were designed to mutually assist each other in achieving a breakthrough. The latter was supposed to settle the matter by force of arms, the former had to legitimize the annexation and make it appear indispensable for the thriving of Russia's own nation. Imperial great power ideology and armed intervention turn out to be two sides of the same coin. Images of the past, present actions, and expectations for the future merged under the sign of internal repression and external expansion. History is "weaponized for war".z The Russian state leadership conceived the invasion ofthe neighboring country as a "special military operation" in order to "denazify Ukraine." This language is based on a multifaceted reframing of Russia's past. Putin portrayed the implosion of the Soviet Union in late 1991 as the "greatest catastrophe of the 20th century." Stalinism was rehabilitated through the lens of imperial greatness and a glorified Red Army. The celebrations and military parades held annually to commemorate the Red Army's victory against Hitler's Germany on May 9, 1945, became ever more lavishly staged, and with this war cult, the underlying message was reversed: a "Never again!" changed to "We'll do it again!" The former peace demonstration was transformed into a parade of military offensive strength. This 1 This essay is a reworked version of my keynote lecture at the Delhi conference from which this edited volume originated. The war in Ukraine brought the topics of the lecture to a head. So I decided to include the new constellation in the print version (September 2022). 2 Simon Schama, "when history is weaponized for war," Financial Times ( ...