I’m not the first person to believe that the burden of history weighs heavily on the shoulders on Russia’s citizens – those seeking a proud identity based upon historical achievements, yet are so often scolded and asked to feel shame (often by the West) over the dark period of Communism (an experience well captured in the East German film “Goodbye, Lenin“). There are of course hundreds of reasons in Russia’s past to feel proud, but the unwillingness to confront the tragic periods appears to be the order of the day. This was perhaps Putin’s political masterstroke: the embrace of the nashe, and the realization that many Russians were so eager to feel proud and bold about who they are and willing to celebrate the past … even the barbarity of Stalinism. The current leadership has encouraged this nostalgia for empire to the point that history is becoming deeply obscured. (Photo: an enormous Stalin poster is paraded through the streets of Moscow on Victory Day, 2007. Source) In Russia, patriotism is complicated, but the erasure of ambiguity creates instant political credit. Almost any official commemoration, event, dramatization, or discussion about Russia’s Soviet past is fraught with a delicate yet intense negotiation of memory. Just look at the level of emotional reckoning in the television program “Zhdi Menya,” the quickly forgotten fiasco of the Bronze Soldier in Estonia, the politics of identity with the Solovetsky Stone, the uncomfortably bellicose Victory Day parade which brought tanks back onto Red Square, and, of course, the now famous propagandistic new school textbook of Russian history produced by the Putin administration, which has softened the legacy of Stalin’s Great Terror to the point of ambiguity. To be more succinct: the recreation of authoritarianism via ultra-nationalism requires a dangerous historical whitewash. This is precisely what we are seeing unfold, as Russians vote in a television contest poll to elect the most important historical figure in history … and so far Stalin is leading the other candidates. The Wall Street Journal has the story after the cut: