"Putin backs WW2 myth in new Russian film" Topic

"A new film showing Red Army soldiers outnumbered by invading Germans but battling on heroically has become part of the Kremlin's campaign to restore Russian pride.

State television showed Russian President Vladimir Putin watching the film last week, alongside Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, in the Central Asian leader's capital Astana.

The clear message was that Russia and Kazakhstan are maintaining Soviet-era bonds of friendship, despite tensions in other parts of the former USSR. But the film itself – Panfilov's 28 Men – is based on a communist myth…"
More here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Putin looks like he has fallen asleep! Doesn't look like the film is that exciting then.

So its not Saving Private Ryan or Fury then? Factual events are what you the individual make of em. Wonder how many Greeks buy the Horrywood version of the Spartans at Thermopylae(300)

Been there done that.

Panfilov div did do more or less what is there. the doubt/ argument is about the size and effective actions of the small unit displayed. it mostly comes from a book, very popular there and used by Tsahal for training, written after the war.
I shall see that film when available.

trailer for the movie looks great!

Of rather more concern -

The public discussion of WW2 history has also been curbed by a controversial 2014 law against the rehabilitation of Nazism.

Under this law, Vladimir Luzgin, a blogger from Perm region in the Urals, was fined 200,000 roubles ($3,200; £2,500.00 GBP) for reposting an article about the war on the Russian social network VK (VKontakte), the daily Kommersant reported in July.

The court ruled that Luzgin posted an article with knowingly false information about a joint invasion of Poland by German and Soviet forces on 1 September 1939.

According to the prosecutors, Luzgin realised that the text might instil in many people "a firm conviction about negative actions of the USSR" in the war.

The court said Luzgin had falsified history by stating "that the communists and Germany jointly attacked Poland, unleashing World War Two, or in other words, that Communism and Nazism co-operated honestly".

In September, Russia's Supreme Court ruled that the punishment of Luzgin was justified.

Nazi Germany and the USSR signed a non-aggression pact in August 1939 – the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In a secret protocol, they agreed to carve up Poland between them.

Nazi troops invaded Poland on 1 September and Soviet troops, from the east, on 17 September.

And -

In another incident, last year, the authorities in Sverdlovsk region banned the works of two British historians – Antony Beevor and John Keegan – saying they were imbued with Nazi propaganda. The Vedomosti daily described (in Russian) the order to remove the books from public libraries as "full of nonsense from start to finish".

Heroic myths are one thing – it was noted in a Latin primer I have that the truth of the account of Horatius at the bridge was not the important thing, it was that Romans felt that it was important to teach it to their children – rewriting history is something else.

Both the Soviets and the Nazis were quite big on that (not that they were the only ones) in the 30s…

@ goragrad: Thanks for posting that; don't know about others but I had no idea such aberration is being enforced in Russia. Concerning it is, that revisionism* becomes (or stands as) official policy in Russia. Very concerning that they even ban authors for not backing the Russian authorities imaginative history.

@ Zargon: You know, 300 is NOT a version of the battle at the Thermopylae BUT a version of the comic by Frank Miller which is a particular, creative look on the legend and not the historical facts. Hence the deformed Ephialtes, the over the top exotism of Xerxes etc. etc. Actually, 300 is a very GOOD adaptation of the comic, achieving highly pictorical images and a narrative rhythm which absolutely capture the look of the original work.

> Actually, 300 is a very GOOD adaptation of the comic

And if so it is exhibit A in why I don't read comics.

@Dogged, it is an evolution of the theme I used to see several years ago (haven't checked recently) that featured icons of Stalin as a saint of the Orthodox Church.

Very troubling to see it getting official support.