Russia celebrates WWII victory
PERSPECTIVES: EUROPE REVILES SOVIET ATROCITIES EVEN WHILE EXULTING IN CRUSHING HITLER
Rapes by soldiers as they capture Berlin in 1945 permeate German memory.
The Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 is a pillar of national pride in Russia, used by the Kremlin to stir patriotic sentiment and rebuff criticism of the Soviet Union and its army.
Yet Russia’s state-backed narratives about the war regularly lead to disagreements with other European countries.
Russia celebrates its victory in World War II every year on 9 May.
This year’s parade is today – it was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
One World War II episode that continues to fuel tensions is the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
War erupted after Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded and carved up Poland in 1939 under a secret clause of the pact.
Soviet soldiers are celebrated in Russia for liberating Europe from Nazism but for some countries, the Red Army is remembered as an occupying force.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were forcibly integrated into the Soviet Union and revile Nazi and Soviet forces alike.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said last month the war did not end until 1993 “when the last Russian soldier left”.
Russia says this narrative is an unacceptable rewriting of history and routinely protests the removal of Soviet-era military monuments in Europe.
One of many points of friction with Poland is the massacre at Katyn, when Soviet secret police shot thousands of Polish officers in 1940 on Stalin’s orders. Until 1990, the Soviet Union claimed the executions were carried out by the Nazis. Moscow has since admitted responsibility.
In 2010, during a thaw in relations between Moscow and Warsaw, the plane carrying Poland’s president to a commemorative event in Smolensk crashed, killing all 96 people on board. Investigations into the accident have become a new source of tension between the two countries.
Stalin accused minority ethnic groups of collaborating with the Nazis and deported hundreds of thousands to Central Asia in harsh conditions. Deported populations were rehabilitated after his death, but tensions linger.
Rapes committed by Soviet soldiers as they captured Berlin in April 1945 permeated German collective memory, but are largely overlooked in Russia. –