Russia is returning to the Soviet days and ways of distorting history. In new schoolbooks dealing with the period between World War I and World War II, students are not openly told that the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic States and that the Carelian Isthmus used to belong to Finland. A new law has been proposed in the Russian Parliament. According to it, historians in neighbouring countries who "distort" and "rewrite" what happened during World War II should be likened to those suspected of terrorism and thus should be permanently denied entry to Russia.
Russian historian Alexandr Djukov said last year that he would like to kill a young Latvian documentarist named Edvins Snore with his own hands. Snore's film Soviet Story, which criticises the Soviet Union, will be shown in Helsinki next week.
In a history book entitled Istorija Rossii II (2009) the reader is led to believe that the Baltic States and a part of Finland belonged to the Soviet Union between the two world wars. For example, on a map depicting the development of Soviet culture from the year 1917 till 1939, Ladogan Carelia, Vyborg and the entire Carelian Isthmus are coloured pink, just like the Soviet Union!
What happened to the Baltic States in 1940 is not explained. There is no mention of the Russian troops marching into Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The book gives the impression that after elections the new parliaments of the Baltic States voluntarily wanted to join the Soviet Union!
With the frequent assassinations of journalists and officially approved deliberate distortion of recent history, the average Russian is unlikely to get a balanced view of the Soviet Union's atrocities in neighbouring countries.
CB