Earlier today there were reports that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the immediate formation of a government commission empowered to fight back against “false history.”  It remains unclear exactly what these powers may include – it could be a reinvention of the Soviet GLAVLIT censorship bureau, or something much more mildly rhetorical – but in terms of linguistics, the high ground has been seized.  So swiftly a topic as vast as history, how it is taught, portrayed in media, or even remembered, has been placed into an unnatural dichotomy.  It is either “true” (what the Kremlin says), or “false” (which is anything the state chooses to disagree with).

The formation of this history commission was preceded by Medvedev’s comments in a May 7 video blog post coinciding with the Victory Day parades in Moscow: