”Totaalinen sota Venäjää vastaan”

Lännen esittäminen Venäjän sotahistoriallisen seuran ”sotilaalliseen erikoisoperaatioon” liittyvissä teksteissä

Authors

• Kati Parppei Akatemiatutkija, dosentti, Itä-Suomen yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37449/ennenjanyt.126773

Keywords:

Russia, Ukraine, Politics of history, Uses of history, War rhetoric, Propaganda

Abstract

As the “special military operation” in Ukraine turned out to be less straightforward than the administration of Russia had expected, Russian propagandists began to emphasize the image of collective, Russophobic “West” as the main architect of Ukraine’s “neo-Nazism”. This article examines how the role of the West in the conflict is represented in the texts published on Russian Military Historical Society’s web portal. In the articles and blogs academic and religious rhetoric are used and sometimes combined to consolidate ideas of “total war” and existential contradiction between Russia and West. References to Eurasianistic ideas add to the image of deep value-based shaft between these two “civilizations.”