The Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia's Interests () was a commission in the Russian Federation that was set up by a decree issued by president Dmitry Medvedev on 15 May 2009, officially to "defend Russia against falsifiers of history and those who would deny Soviet contribution to the victory in World War II". The commission was headed by Medvedev's Chief of staff Sergey Naryshkin. The decree establishing the commission was invalidated on 14 February 2012, and the commission thus ceased to exist. The commission has been described as a further regress toward Soviet and Stalinist practices, glorifying the Soviet Union and its crimes.
Origins, tasks and related legislation
Concerns had been raised in Russia for some time regarding the efforts in some former Soviet countries regarding alleged attempts to "revise" the outcome of the Nuremberg Trials and "re-write" the history of World War II, before the suggestion of the federal Minister of Emergency Situations, Sergey Shoygu, finally raised the issue to that of a state political matter in February 2009.
According to commission chairman Sergey Naryshkin, the tasks of the commission would not be to "re-write" or "politicise" history in the manner of countries like Latvia and Lithuania. Instead, the commission would analyse alleged falsifications of historical facts aimed at tarnishing Russia's international reputation, and advise the Russian president on the ways in which such alleged falsifications can be countered. It was foreseen that the commission would meet at least twice per year.
The commission was staffed by then current and former State Duma members, such as Natalia Narochnitskaya, Sergey Markov and Konstantin Zatulin, and officials of Russia's armed forces and FSB, including General of the army Nikolay Makarov. Among the twenty-eight members were five professional historians: Andrey Artizov (the head of the Federal Archive Agency), Alexander Chubaryan (the head of the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences) Natalia Narochnitskaya, Andrey Sakharov (before 2010 the head of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences) and Nikolai Svanidze.
Reception
In Russia
In an interview with the website Liberty.ru, historian Alexander Dyukov has said that "only those who falsify history need fear the work of the commission".
Russian opposition politicians attacked the commission as effectively reintroducing state ideology for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, which was explicitly forbidden by the Constitution of Russia of that time. According to former Duma deputy, Vladimir Ryzhkov of the Russian Republican Party, the commission and new legislation criminalizing criticism of the Soviet Union allows the state to impose its own idea of political will and ideology and was also part of a continuing rehabilitation of Stalin and the former Soviet dictator's policies. Human rights activist and former lawmaker Lev Ponomaryov dubbed the decree openly totalitarian and claimed that it discredited President Medvedev as a lawyer. Mikhail Gorbachev has also expressed disapproval of Medvedev's decree.
Some Russian media and individual opposition journalists also criticised the developments. The business daily Vedomosti noted the name of the commission leaves the way clear for the falsification of history in favor of Russia, establishing a "cult of victory"similar to the civil religions upon which authoritarian and totalitarian states have been built in the past. Journalist and author Yulia Latynina compared the commission to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: "The whole idea was copied from Orwell's 1984 and from the famous phrase about Russia as a country with unpredictable past." According to the newspaper Vremya Novostei, the struggle over historical truth in Russia declared at the highest level has taken grotesque form as an article by historian Sergey Kovalyov published on the official website of the Russian Ministry of Defence blamed Poland for starting World War II.
Historian Roy Medvedev criticized the commission for the numbers of professional historians there; he counted three members as historians out of actual five, stating "even they are not recognized among professionals."