"In Putin’s Russia, history is not about the past. It's about the present”

The professor at the UIT Arctic University of Norway is part of the Normemo project where Russian memory polices are studied in a regional context.

She says that Moscow is ‘merging wars,’ that symbols and narratives and memories from the Second World War are mixed with the current warfare in Ukraine.

The Barents Observer spoke with Myklebost on the eve of October 25, the day marked as the Red Army’s so-called liberation of Kirkenes in 1944. The professor argues that Russian diplomats in Norway are actively using the liberation day for political purposes.

Likewise, she sees a planned so-called ‘sea of flowers’ planned by the local war memorial, as a way to monopolize the monument. Over the past years, local Russians in Kirkenes along with likeminded across Norway and beyond have collected money for the purchase of several hundred roses that will be put by the memorial. 

“What is actually happening is that these ‘seas of flower’ are monopolizing the liberation monument and making it harder for the municipality to arrange Norwegian commemorations in a way that is in line with our interpretation of World War II and what actually happening in Kirkenes in 1944,” Myklebost says. 

“To monopolize monuments by flowers is a rather subtle strategy because flowers are hard to oppose and seemingly these are just friendly acts.”

A full transcript of the podcast is available underneath. 

You are one of the key people in a project called Normemo. And can you please say a few words, what is memory politics? And why has history become such an important tool for Putin's security policies over the last two decades? 

Well, the Normemo project studies Moscow's memory policies on a regional level. So how Moscow instrumentalizes the past for political purposes today. And this is key to Putin's policies, because controlling history, controlling the past is a way of controlling the population. So I would actually say that Moscow's memory policies towards its regions on a domestic level, towards neighboring states, as part of its foreign policy is sort of a basic fundament of Moscow's information policies. 

We all know that a very important part of why Putin is controlling Russia is the simple fact that he has state censorship. So controlling information equals or includes also controlling history. And this is a very, very powerful political tool. 

So in our project, we have studied over six years, actually, how Moscow's state memory policies are received on the regional level in Northwest Russia, and how local regional actors in Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Petrozavodsk, how they negotiate, how they receive the policies coming out of Moscow concerning the past. And we also look into how Moscow is using memory policy as a diplomatic tool in relations with Norway. 

We've seen a strong turn towards authoritarianism in Russia over many years. How is memory policies a part of this trend? 

Under Putin, I would say history has become securitized in the sense that it's actually part of the security policy of the current regime. And this is reflected, for example, in Putin's amendments to the Russian Constitution in 2020, where very concrete formulations about what you can say and what you can write about history is actually part of the Constitution. 

And what you can also state about history is part of the penal code. So this all speaks to the fact that history is not about the past in Russia. It's about the present and controlling the political development of Russia today. And then you have this, I would say, cult, state-driven cult in Russia around World War II, what is known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. So this is also a key focus in our project. 

We focus specifically on how memories of the Great Patriotic War are instrumentalized in Russia today. 

And you mentioned the Second World War. Why is this so important for Putin's regime today? 

I think it has to do with several factors. One very important thing is that on a micro level in Russia, memories of the Great Patriotic War still exist in very many families. And there are strong emotions and family memories connected to losses and heroic deeds and family memories about the war. So this makes the tool stronger because it appeals to people's emotions and identity and who they are. So this is one reason. And I think another reason why World War II has become so focal in Putin's memory policies is that there was already a tradition from Soviet times. During Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet regime started a rather targeted policy of mythologizing the Great Patriotic War. So Victory Day celebrations, commemorations on May 9, and also this cult-like mythology around the victory over Nazi Germany and the Red Army's big efforts and sacrifices in winning down over the German regime. So you have this tradition, and Putin has picked up on this tradition. And he knows that there is a strong emotional appeal with these memories. 

So they resonate with people and are easily instrumentalized. 

So how are these narratives about the Second World War being used in the ongoing war in Ukraine? 

Well, one thing that we see in our project is a key factor is what we call ‘war merging,’ the mixing sort of symbols and narratives and memories from the Great Patriotic War with the current warfare in Ukraine. And this is what we hear from Putin. This is what we hear from all the hegemonic voices coming out of Moscow, that the current war of aggression in Ukraine is actually a continuation of the great deeds that the grandfathers of the current soldiers made during World War II. So they are creating this illusion that they are fighting Nazism again, this time the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, like they fought down German Nazism during World War II. So this is a very, I mean, it's a very open policy of creating this false connection between what is still remembered as a very positive event in Soviet history, something to be very proud about, the actual conquest of Nazi Germany and fighting down of Nazism, and today's illegal war of aggression, which is something quite else. 

But, I mean, due to the information policy and the hard censorship in today's Russia, this illusion actually works with part of the Russian population. And the idea that Russian soldiers dying in Ukraine today are actually dying for a just cause, that they're fighting a defensive war to protect Russian-speaking people in Ukraine against the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, all these twisted ideas actually resonate. 

So in the Normemo project, you look at memory politics, not only as a product of the Kremlin, but also that it's something that is being created in the regions. How are these policies, the Second World War memory policies, received by people living in Northwest Russia? 

Yes, this is key to our project because you have so many studies on Moscow's memory politics and how the Kremlin is instrumentalizing history. But we started out from the perspective that it wouldn't work in Russia if it was not also implemented on a local and regional level all over Russia. And there are actually very few studies of how memory politics coming from Moscow work in local societies in Russia. So this was sort of key, trying to find out the mechanism at play. 

I mean, one thing is Moscow, but what is the mechanism on a local and regional level? And what we see when we study libraries in the Pechenga region, for example, when we study military patriotic organizations for children and youth in Murmansk or Kaliningrad, is that there is a script from Moscow, so a meta-narrative on the Great Patriotic War, which is sort of internalized by most Russians today, because this is 80 years ago. So the big script contains the heroic deeds, the fighting down of Nazism, etc. And then this meta-narrative sort of co-opts local and regional figures, symbols, stories, destinies, if they fit into the meta-narrative. 

So the mechanism is much about encouraging and picking up what can be used, and also, of course, about suppressing what is not accepted by Moscow on a local level. But it's actually a process of finding the local heroes. And Yunarmia, for example, has a very targeted policy of picking up on local war stories and destinies that fit into this bigger hegemonic pattern coming out of Moscow. 

Both you and I have traveled much in the Russian north and in the border regions, the Russian border regions towards Norway and Finland, and there are war memorials all over the place. Why have they built so many, and why do they continue to build new ones today? 

Yes, that's a very interesting phenomenon. And of course, the new memorials are growing in numbers rapidly after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the need to commemorate new deceased dead soldiers. But this is a landscape, the border land, the border region between Norway, Finland and Russia in the north, where World War II was very intensive. So you have these old war memorials. This landscape is dotted with war memorials commemorating not only soldiers, but also Soviet prisoners of war. 

We have these all over Norway, and they were put up in the late 1940s, and some of them in the 1950s even. And the density on the Russian side is, of course, very high. You have this whole Soviet tradition of commemorating the Great Patriotic War, starting from Leonid Brezhnev that I mentioned. And then with Russia's new war in Ukraine since 2014, there has been a need to legitimize the war by completing this memoriescape with new memorials that sort of help tell a story that the local population can accept. 

So I would say the memorials are about making the local societies in this region on the Russian side accept the fact that their sons are dying, their fathers are not coming home from the war, they're coming in coffins. So creating this new memoriescape is also about legitimizing the war. 

And of course, what we see in many of these memorials is symbolism connected with victory in Ukraine and this whole narrative that the soldiers today are fighting a just war of defense against neo-Nazism. This is also sort of filling in in the new memorials and the Soviet symbolism, which is also partly present. So the ‘war merging’ is also very visible in all these new memorials. And it's actually about manipulating local Russian societies into believing the Kremlin's version of the war of aggression in Ukraine. 

When we look at Russian memory policies towards Norway, we see a rather distinct development after 2012 and after the start of Putin's third presidency. How has Russian state actors increasingly instrumentalized this Second World War narratives for political purposes, such as to weaken support for sanctions in Norway, or to create tensions between Northern Norway and Oslo in public opinion? 

This is actually a basic topic in our project that we have several articles on. Well, there is a tradition from the Soviet period between Norway and the Soviet Union of commemorating the Soviet Red Army liberation of Eastern Finnmark together. So Norway, since the 1950s, invited Soviet delegations to Kirkenes for commemorations. 

And of course, the liberation monument to the Red Army soldier here in Kirkenes has been a focal point of these commemorations. And this was a way for the small state of Norway and NATO member Norway since 1949 to handle relations with the Soviet Union, which was the key opponent to NATO during the Cold War. So it was sort of a soft policy of relating to the Soviet leadership and having some sort of dialogue, even if this was very securitized, of course. And then after the fall of the Soviet Union, Norway was very eager to engage with the new Russian Federation, to stabilize the border region and to sort of start anew in this new era of cross-border peace and opportunities. So Norway very, very consciously, this is one of our key findings, chose to use the memory of the Red Army liberation of Eastern Finnmark as a tool to build relations with Russia in economic terms, in political terms, in cultural terms. 

And this worked for some years on the premises that Norway wanted as positive relation-building. But then with the authoritarian turn under Putin and his third presidency from 2012, this all became more politicized from the Russian side. So the commemorations turned into a venue for Russian diplomatic actors, political actors, to promote Russian official narratives, foreign policy narratives. And also we see since 2014 to manipulate, in particular, the public opinion in Northern Norway, to forward ideas that the sanction policy adopted by Oslo in 2014 was not in the interest of Northern Norway, because we had this allegedly cross-border, very special relationship that stood above the so-called Ukraine crisis. 

But why is this region so important? Why is Kirkenes, Eastern Finnmark, Northern Norway so important for Moscow? 

That’s a good point. It's very important to emphasize that this manipulation targeting the Northern part of Norway has nothing to do with the population here and that they are particularly easy to manipulate or anything like that. 

It's about the geographical proximity to areas of great military and strategic importance to Russia. So the Kola Peninsula and the Barents Sea with Norway, Svalbard and Franz Josef Land, and the military complex that Russia has in the Barents Sea. 

So it's about the geographical location of Northern Norway and the fact that Moscow sees itself in a strategic competition in these areas and would want to control them in an open conflict with NATO. So Russian influence and a positive public opinion towards Russia in Northern Norway is highly important for Moscow. 

We see now that Moscow and Russian authorities deliberately say that the Red Army liberated all of Northern Norway, although the fact is that they in October 1944 only pushed the Germans out of parts of Eastern Finnmark. Why are they having this emphasis on all of Northern Norway? 

You know, it's funny because this happened in Soviet times as well. And then Norwegian authorities were very aware, sources show us from the ministries themselves, show us that on the Norwegian side in Oslo there was a high awareness of this Soviet urge to make propaganda, to enlarge the Red Army liberation in Norway in geographical terms and also in political terms, to talk about the liberation of all of Northern Norway. And Norway actually in the 1960s and 70s stopped several Soviet initiatives in this direction to enlarge the so-called Red Army liberation. And we're very set on emphasizing that the liberation was only about Eastern Finnmark. And then this comes back in the new era of Russian propaganda. We see it again today. And in Norway I don't think today we have the same awareness, or we haven't had the same awareness at least until the full-scale invasion of the importance of Russian propaganda towards our communities. So we have allowed for this enlargement without noticing it. 

And there is a clear parallel also in the mixing of the Russian liberation, the so-called Russian liberation, with what actually was a Soviet Red Army liberation. So we have accepted to a great extent Moscow's claim that this was a Russian victory in defeating Nazi Germany. 

And of course this is the same that we see in Ukraine, in the Baltic states. This is a general pattern in Moscow's hegemonic narrative about the Great Patriotic War, that this was a Russian victory and they do not want to speak much about the fact that the Soviet Red Army, of course, consisted of soldiers from Ukraine, from Georgia, from the ‘Stan states’, from many former Soviet republics that are no longer under Moscow's control. 

But if we look a little more at Kirkenes, this Norwegian border town very close to Russia, how has Russian memory policies and war commemoration changed after Russia went to war against Ukraine? 

What we see is a stronger element of manipulation, targeting in particular the sanctions and trying to create disagreement between the public opinion in the North and the government, and also about Norway's Russia policy. So before 2014, from the Russian side, the commemorations in Kirkenes were more about nurturing the hearts and minds of the population in Northern Norway. 

After 2014, we have very clear examples targeting the sanction policy. For example, in 2015, immediately after the 70th anniversary of the Red Army liberation of Eastern Finnmark, the Russian embassy in Oslo sent a letter to the Norwegian Ministry of Defense asking to have this joint effort to lift a Soviet airplane from the Tana Fjord and then a joint Russian-Norwegian commemoration of the pilots who were lost. And of course, Norway and the Ministry of Defense had to reject this, because one of the sanctions was that there were no longer any military bilateral broad contacts, so the Ministry of Defense in Norway could not do this together with Russian military actors, which were required to lift the plane. And this "no" from the Norwegian ministries stirred great tensions in Kirkenes and protests at the liberation monument in support of relations with Russia and against the sanctions. So this is an example of manipulation and the using of memories of World War II, which are very important to many people here in Kirkenes as well. And the idea that there has been this cross-border Norwegian-Russian comradeship in arms, fighting down Nazi Germany, is rather strong in other Norway, and particularly in eastern Finnmark. So using this opportunity to make Norway reject a joint war commemoration project stirred tensions. 

And there is no doubt that this was intentional from the Russian side and a way of turning the public opinion locally here against the government in Oslo, and making it rather uncomfortable for the Norwegian authorities to stick to the sanction policy. So this is one of many examples. 

Here locally in Kirkenes we see a relatively small group of Russian citizens assembling mostly at the war memorial in town, and mostly on the 9th of May and also on the 25th of October, the day of the so-called liberation of the town from the Nazi occupation. What do you think? Are these commemorations heartfelt, or is it more a kind of a political manifestation?

You know, it's probably both. It's really hard to know what are the intentions of each individual joining in on these commemorations. But there is no doubt, I mean, these commemorations are organized by the Russian General Consulate in Kirkenes, by the Russian Foreign Service in Norway, and there is no doubt that from the Russian state's side, these are political manifestations and political demonstrations and propaganda, valuable propaganda events, where the Russian Foreign Service in Norway can promote Moscow's foreign policy narratives about the current aggression in Ukraine. I mean, this is what we've seen since 2014 and more intensely since 2022. But that said, I do believe, I mean, I have Russian friends and colleagues who feel strongly about war commemorations, because they have relatives and family histories, as we talked about. 

And I do believe that they come with sincere intentions of commemorating the historical events. But, you know, the level of manipulation from the Russian authorities and the instrumentalization of these events is very high. And what we see since 2022 and the full-scale invasion is that the Russian Foreign Service is more and more using these events to provoke uncomfortable political debates, to stir tensions, to create divisions here locally in Kirkenes over how to relate to Russia, how to relate to what is now a more and more closed border. So they're actually stirring up what is already a very difficult policy field for the local society. And again, they're playing on emotions on an individual level. 

So these are tools that work. 

This week, the Russian General Consulate in Kirkenes will once again organize a ceremony at the war memorial in town in connection with the October 25th liberation day. What can we expect? 

It will be interesting to see. What we have seen over the last few years are these intensified provocations. So you're using commemorations on May 9 and October 25th to stir tensions. And last year and again the year before that, there were these seas of flowers appearing at the liberation monument. Allegedly money had been collected through Russian language social media from all over Europe, from Portugal in the south to Finnmark in the north, from citizens not only of Russia but also former Soviet republics to collect funding and make this sea of flowers. So it seems all very friendly and good. This is the narrative circulating in Russian language social media. But what is actually happening is that these seas of flower are monopolizing the liberation monument and making it harder for the municipality to arrange Norwegian commemorations in a way that is in line with our interpretation of World War II and what was happening in Kirkenes in 1944. And this is, I mean, we know this from the Baltic states. To monopolize monuments by flowers is a rather subtle strategy because flowers are hard to oppose and seemingly these are just friendly acts. 

But in Riga, for example, some years back, a big Soviet war memorial was surrounded by this sea of flowers. And of course in the Baltic states, the understanding of Russian propaganda is much deeper. So when the flowers were taken away, you had all these accusations from the same Russian-speaking community which aligns with Moscow's narrative that these were Russophobic acts. And this is a very important part, I think, of the provocations that we see here in Kirkenes as well. 

That war memories are used to stage events that can turn into conflict and then be used to accuse Norway, the local community here, of being Russophobic, of not respecting Russian traditions of war commemorations, etc. So I will be very interested to see what happens this Saturday. And my guess is that we are having a new sea of flowers because it's been very effective for the last couple of years.