Tsars, Soviets, Putin: A Study of Russia’s Politics of History, by Wojciech Materski
his work is available free of charge online through Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance at this link.
(For professors, college students, and interested adults) This work is available free of charge online through Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance at this link.
Foreword by Professor Emeritus Hiroaki Kuromiya Poland has long been a powerhouse of Russian/Soviet studies. Because of its historical connections (including the Russian occupation of large parts of Poland following the Partitions in the eighteenth century that lasted for more than a hundred years), Poland is in a uniquely advantageous position to study and analyze the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and today, the Russian Federation. Unfortunately, however, much of Poland’s first-rate research on the subject is not known to Anglophone readers. This is due in part to the fact that many, if not most, Anglophone scholars do not bother to learn the Polish language, and in part to the widespread yet erroneous perception influenced by Russian propaganda that Polish scholarship in this field is generally “biased.” Ukraine suffers from the same lack of appreciation by Western, particularly Anglophone experts. After Russia launched a full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian scholarship began to attract more attention from Anglophone scholars, while Polish scholarship has not. The publication in English of a book on the Russian/Soviet politics of history by the eminent Polish historian, Wojciech Materski, is both fortunate and overdue.
Among Poland’s distinguished historians and political scientists of Russia and the Soviet Union, Professor Materski stands out as a giant in the field. He graduated from the University of Warsaw in 1974 and went on to achieve the highest academic degree (“habilitation,” a “higher doctorate”), in 1981. In his long academic career since, spent mostly at the Polish Academy of Sciences, Professor Materski has published dozens of books and hundreds of articles. Today, he is one of the best-known specialists of Russia and the Soviet Union in Poland and has been honored by numerous awards for his distinguished contribution to the field. His work has focused on the history of the Soviet Union and Polish–Soviet relations, beginning with his first monograph Polska a ZSRR 1923 1924. Stosunki wzajemne na tle sytuacji politycznej w Europie (Poland and the Soviet Union 1923–1924: Mutual Relations against the Background of the Political Situation in Europe), which was confiscated by censors in 1976 and published only in 1981, and the latest Władze RP na uchodźstwie. Cele wojenne i zarys odbudowy państwa 1939–1945 (The Polish Government in Exile: War Aims and the Outline for the Reconstruction of the State, 2023). At the same time, his work has not been narrowly limited, in fact it spans wide– ranging subjects and geographical areas ranging from Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus and Georgia to the Far East and Japan: Bolszewicy i samuraje. Walka dyplomatyczną i zbrojna o rosyjski Daleki Wschód (1917–1925) (Bolsheviks and Samurai: The Diplomatic and Armed Struggle for the Russian Far East, 1990). In the English language, Katyn: A Crime without Punishment (2007), which he co-edited, is probably his best known. His 1996 book, Kremlin versus Poland 1939–1945: Documents from the Soviet Archive, is an English–Russian bilingual publication.
The original Polish edition of the present volume was published as Od cara do “cara” (From Tsar to “Tsar”) in 2017, in the wake of Russia’s occupation of Crimea and parts of the Donbas in 2014. The latter “Tsar” in quotation marks refers to today’s Russian autocratic ruler, President Vladimir Putin. The book traces and examines the politics of history (Geschichtspolitik) in Russia (the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation) over the centuries. History is such an essential part of human life that it is politicized in every country and every society. Democracies, where competing political forces vie publicly for power, confront the challenge of history being used as a political tool. Yet academic freedom and historical truth remain essential elements of democratic states. By contrast, dictatorial regimes almost unilaterally interpret and use history to suit the domestic and external political needs of the time. In such regimes, as is often said, those who control the past will control the future. The records over the several centuries examined in this book demonstrate the extraordinary lengths to which the Russian/Soviet state has gone and still goes to mold historical research and historical memory for political purposes. The only occasions when the state has allowed relatively free historical research and discussion are the reform era under Tsar Alexander II in the second half of the nineteenth century (“emancipation of history as an academic discipline”), during the “Thaw” under Nikita Khrushchev, the late Soviet period of glasnost’ and perestroika under Mikhail Gorbachev, and the several years under Boris Yeltsin following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. After Putin took over in the late 1990s to the present day, the state of historical research has regressed to old and persistent patterns of abuse of history by the state. In many respects, the situation has now become even worse than during the Soviet era. For example, while the Soviet state never officially denied the separateness of the Ukrainian ethnicity and the Ukrainian language from its Russian counterparts, Putin denies this distinction and embarked decisively on destroying Ukraine in 2022, in an all-out war that continues today. Quite appropriately, Putin, a former Communist, has become the new Russian “Tsar.”
Professor Materski details in the present book the cyclical nature of a history subordinated to political expediency in Russia. He examines, among others, the myths surrounding Russia’s dynastic heritage, the spiritual supremacy of Orthodoxy (“Holy Rus’’) over Catholicism or Protestantism, the myth of Moscow as the “Third Rome,” Russia’s “civilizational” missions (Russian/Soviet colonialism and imperialism in disguise), Russia’s identity as European, Slavic, Eurasian, or “Aziopean” (from “Aziopa,” Azi[ia] and [Evr]opa, or Asia and Europe, a caricature of the “Asiatic”–European nature of Russia, i.e. Aziopa sounds like A-zhopa, meaning “Ah, an ass”). He reaches the clear conclusion that Russia’s consistent policy has been to present the state to both domestic and external audiences as strong and enduring in order to inculcate pride in the population and inspire awe in its “enemies,” as well as emphasizing the common “collectivist” values of Russia as spiritually superior to the perceived materialistic individualism of the West. Russia’s long-held resentment of the West permeates every aspect of Russian life, far beyond its political use of history. Putin alleges that the West fails to acknowledge Russia’s unique values and historical achievements.
Professor Materski devotes considerable attention to a topic of his particular interest: Moscow’s political manipulation of the history of the Katyn’ massacres of 1940, in which some 22,000 Polish POWs and others (military and police officers, border guards, civil servants and intellectuals) were summarily executed by Moscow. In the face of clear and overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Moscow has repeatedly sought to exculpate itself while blaming Nazi Germany instead. Although Professor Materski admits that his focused scrutiny of the Katyn’ case might be seen as a “design flaw” or his personal “politics of history,” it is neither. It is in fact an excellent case that sheds much light on the subject of the book: the politics of history in Russia and the Soviet Union. The present book amply but subtly demonstrates the formidable erudition of Professor Materski. Its publication in English translation is to be welcomed by the Anglophone world as one of the best examples of Polish scholarship on the longue durée of Russian and Soviet history.
Hiroaki Kuromiya
Emeritus Professor of History, Indiana University, Bloomington
