In a new blog post for Verfassungsblog, researchers Andrii Nekoliak (Dutch Team of the MEMOCRACY) and Elizaveta Klochkova (OVD-Info), describe how the Russian Federation is using its “memory law” to put pressure on potential critics of the Russian attack on Ukraine. This Russian law is used to create a mood of paranoia and fear among the population, and a feeling as if the country were in a besieged fortress. The authors think that Russian regime may increasingly use Article 354.1 to purge anti-war dissent. 

MEMOCRACY team members, Dr. Andrii Nekoliak and Dr. Dovilė Sagatienė, have published a blog post on the political and legal symbolism of May 9 in East European ‘region of memory’. The blog entry takes a stock of legal measures by Lithuania and Ukraine to countervail Russia’s decades-long mnemo-political aggressiveness. The authors position both nations as sharing a number of common mnemo-political characteristics since obtaining national independence in 1991. They trace the evolution of war symbols legislation in both countries in the face of Russian aggressiveness in the region.  

Anastasiia Vorobiova, a research assistant in the MEMOCRACY team at the Polish Academy of Sciences, has published a blog post in Verfassungsblog about rights of children, school curriculum, and memory politics in Russia.

Anastasiia Vorobiova, a research assistant in the MEMOCRACY team at the Polish Academy of Sciences, has published a blog post in Völkerrechtsblog, about promotion of war-themed games among children in the biggest Russian museum of military history. She focuses on the “Victory tree” quest conducted for children aged from six to twelve, which in this year’s edition is not limited to recreating events of the “glorious” military past, but aims to allure to the present by using the letter ‘Z’ (which is now associated with a Russian invasion to Ukraine) in the Cyrillic event title. She underscores that Russia’s practice of using museums to disseminate government-dictated historical narratives with questionable geopolitical references and putting them in a game form is inconsistent both with the cultural rights’ aspect of memorization and children’s best interests in relation to play and leisure.

Dr. Paula Rhein-Fischer, a post-doctoral researcher in the MEMOCRACY team at the University of Cologne, has published a blog post in Verfassungsblog, detailing the extent of the law adopted by German Parliament, which will extend the scope of legally protected historical truths to include genocides, war crimes and crimes against humanity. She underscores that the reform, which was prompted by the EU framework decision on combating racism and xenophobia, exceeds the EU demands in one important aspect by not requiring the historical crimes to have been established by a decision of a national or international court.

Dr. Uladzislau Belavusau, Senior Researcher in EU law at the T.M.C. Asser institute and head of the Dutch team of the MEMOCRACY project, authored a blog post on Verfassungsblog regarding the history and state of memory laws in Belarus since 1991. He walks through the history of Belarusian memory laws and mnemonic constitutionalism by illustrating four different periods of memory law development, how these changes eventually culminated in the ‘year of historical memory’ in Belarus – within which the state’s propaganda machine vis-à-vis historical memory was turned into overdrive, and how Łukašenka’s grip on power has been indispensable in reaching the dire point that Belarus currently finds itself in – where its view and policies of history now essentially align with that of Putin’s Russia.