Centenary of the Civil War in Russia and Historical Memory

Abstract

The article dwells on the results of the reflection on the history of the Russian Civil War in view of its centenary. The paper describes the most significant Russian and international scientific projects and works as well as the dialogue of historians at scientific conferences. In addition, it characterizes the current conceptual understanding of the Civil War in Russia as a series of wars, various kinds of armed and other struggles, as a unique global phenomenon in the diversity of military, political, economic, class-related, socio-cultural, cultural and religious, spiritual and moral, national and interethnic processes, conflicts and divisions, as well as domestic and international clashes and confrontations. Further, the close and inseverable link between the Civil War and the Allied intervention is emphasized. The paper analyses the problems of historical memory about the Civil War and battles for its memory in Russia, which are strongly related not only to the events of a hundred years ago, but also to the present day. Further, it demonstrates how the issues of historical memory and Russian state policy on the war’s memory are interpreted in other countries and what efforts the latter are making to manipulate the minds of Russians and their own citizens for the benefit of their current policy on Russia. The paper shows that foreign authors and publishers are trying to absolve the West from responsibility for the military intervention in Russia, its northern region in particular. Some foreign authors are keen to give false interpretations to the history of the concentration camp on Mudyug Island that was established by the interventionists, as well as distort the events of the armed confrontation in the North and, thereby, the role and purpose of the Yurievsky Frontier Memorial that has in recent years been created in the Railway Front Military Historical Park.