Not based on a true story

This week, Russia’s Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky found himself again in the center of the country’s ongoing discussion about its World War 2 narratives – the war which is known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War.

David and Goliath-narrative resurrected
As the BBC reports in a detailed online article, a new Russian film, Panfilov’s 28 Men, depicts how a group of Russian, Kazakh and Kyrgyz Soviet solders, finding themselves massively outnumbered by enemy forces, heroically fight back, with disproportionate losses on the enemy side, knowing too well that they will eventually all be killed.

The problem with this David and Goliath narrative is that it isn’t true. The story’s elements of myth were investigated and clarified already in 1948 in the Soviet Union.

Re-emergence of Soviet new conservativism
When critics last week reminded the Russian public of the problem with the authenticity of the events depicted in the new film, Minister Medinsky’s message was clear:

“[E]ven if this story was invented from start to finish, if there had been no Panfilov, if there had been nothing, this is a sacred legend that shouldn’t be interfered with. People that do that are filthy scum.”

We witness the re-emergence of Soviet new conservativism, combining an insistence on protecting and revitalising Soviet patriotism with the kind of post-factual ideology that not only allows for, but also encourages disinformation; not only about the present, but also about the past.