Lunch Lecture - Michel Abeßer

The past as a political resource and a threat. Limits and loopholes of historical scholarship in Putin's Russia

Over the course of the last decade, Russia once more has proven the unpredictability of its past. Historians and the public alike saw major revisions of particular periods of Russian history, as well as the emergence of a set of political tools to interfere sharply with the professions’ work and regulate its output. This lecture will address some of these political interferences in and utilization of history by Putin’s regime ranging from fostering patriotism to neo-imperial aspirations that paved the way for the current war. To assess the extent of academic freedom that remains within this politicized field, we will take a closer look at these obstacles to and practices of research that Russian historians experience daily.