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@simsa04 @fu

The least that can be said is that in Russia there has not been, nor is there any critical analysis of its own history. Instead, it lives on in quasi-mythological narratives that reach far, far back.

Yes, Putin has made the day of the victory over Nazi Germany a holiday, but the special view of these matters is already burried in the name under which WW2 is addressed in Russia: Вели́кая Оте́чественная война́, what is usually translated to English as "The Great Patriotic War". But the German translation "Großer Vaterländischer Krieg" is more precise: everything is reduced to the defense of the Fatherland (it is a reference to the war against Napoleon, so it goes further back) and the annexation and oppression of all the other states "in the course of this defense" is simply ignored. Which is why then also the collapse of the Soviet Union can be called "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century".

And with regard to the war in Ukraine this mythical (but basically nonsensical) view of Putin (and many others) plays a role as well. According to which the origin of Russia is to be found in the Kievan Rus' i.e. in Kiev. Therefore, Ukraine cannot possibly separate from Russia and can never be called its own culture or state. (Of course, one may ask why Putin doesn't notice that Ukraine could argue in the same way. Namely, that Russia has no right to exist, because the real Russia has always been in Kiev, in Ukraine. But all this it not rational thinking.)

All this is appalling nonsense, but even the people on the street continue to talk like this instead of emancipating themselves and starting to think for themselves. (In the sense of a real enlightenment (Kant), not in the sense of the "Querdenker).