29 January, 22:07
Every January 27, the world divides in two. Forty countries commemorate the International Holocaust Remembrance Day—a universal reminder of genocide and crimes against humanity. Russia, however, transforms this date into a Day of Military Glory, replacing memory of the systematic extermination of the Jewish people with a cult of its own heroism and suffering.
This is not coincidence. This is mnemonic warfare—a struggle for control over historical memory, where the Kremlin systematically displaces the universal narrative about crimes against humanity with a particularistic myth of "great victory."
The Chronology of Substitution: From Yeltsin to Putin
In March 1995, ten years before the UN established January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Boris Yeltsin signed a law on Russia's Days of Military Glory. Among thirteen dates was January 27—the day the Leningrad blockade was lifted.
The context of 1995 is revealing: the first Chechen war, economic collapse, the rapid growth of national-conservative sentiment. Against the backdrop of the Soviet empire's disintegration, Yeltsin attempted to create a new Russian statehood by appropriating Soviet military symbolism. The blockade commemoration became part of this nation-building project—but this was not yet direct confrontation with the Holocaust, which did not yet exist as an international observance.
In 2005, the UN established January 27 as Holocaust Remembrance Day—to honor the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet forces. The paradox: Russia, as the successor state to the USSR, should celebrate precisely this date as its victory. But the Kremlin chose a different path.
In December 2014, following the annexation of Crimea and the beginning of war against Ukraine, Vladimir Putin renamed the holiday. The neutral "Day of Lifting the Blockade of the City of Leningrad" became the bombastic "Day of the Complete Liberation of Leningrad from the Fascist Blockade." The emphasis shifted from tragedy to triumph, from victims to glory.
Unrecognized Genocide: How Russia Relativizes the Holocaust
When discussing "non-recognition of the Holocaust," we often mean outright denial. But Russia's strategy is subtler and more dangerous: not to deny, but to dissolve, to blur the specificity of the Jewish catastrophe in the general sea of "victims of Nazism."
Ilya Altman, co-chair of the Russian Holocaust Center, notes: Russia is the only state that does not award state honors to people recognized by Yad Vashem as "Righteous Among the Nations." Holocaust Remembrance Day was returned to the calendar of educational events only in 2022—and only after intervention by the Presidential Council for Human Rights.
In history textbooks prior to 2004, the Holocaust was either not mentioned at all or not presented as "the only case in world history when a state attempted to completely destroy a separate people." Israel's ambassador to Russia, Arkady Milman, expressed bewilderment: how can the successor state to the country that liberated concentration camp prisoners ignore the genocide of Jews?
The answer lies in a systematic policy of relativization. Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, claimed in a 2024 report that Hitler's primary goal was the destruction of "Slavic peoples," without mentioning the genocide of Jews. Sergey Lavrov substituted the "Jewish question" with the "Russian question," equating Western support for Ukraine with Hitler's plans.
This is classic soft denial. Formally, the Holocaust is recognized, but its uniqueness is blurred, and the central place in the narrative about World War II is occupied by the suffering of the Russian (Soviet) people.
The Blockade Myth: Constructing a Sacred Sacrifice
The Leningrad blockade has become for Russian propaganda what the Holocaust is for world historical memory—an absolute measure of suffering, an unassailable moral argument. But unlike the Holocaust, which remains subject to constant scholarly research and critical reflection, the blockade has been transformed into a sacred myth, immune to criticism.
The official narrative is absolute: 872 days of complete isolation, heroic resistance, terrible hunger, mass mortality. According to Nuremberg Trial data, 671,635 people died during the blockade—this figure has become indisputable.
But archival documents analyzed by St. Petersburg historian Igor Bogdanov reveal troubling details. His study "Leningrad Blockade from A to Z" states: "In the archival documents there is not a single fact of starvation death among representatives of district committees, city committee, or regional committee of the Communist Party."
The Smolny canteen had any products available: fruits, vegetables, caviar, buns, pastries. Milk and eggs were delivered from a subsidiary farm in the Vsevolozhsk district. Nikolai Ribkovsky, an instructor in the personnel department of the city committee, while resting in a party sanatorium during the blockade, described in his diary: "Every day meat—mutton, ham, chicken, goose, turkey, sausage; fish—bream, smelt, ruffe, fried, boiled, and jellied. Caviar, balyk, cheese, pies, cocoa, coffee, tea, 300 grams of white and the same amount of black bread per day... and to all this 50 grams of wine, good port wine for lunch and dinner."
Daniil Granin, who together with Ales Adamovich interviewed about 200 blockade survivors for "The Blockade Book," published the truth gradually. In 2014, the magazine Zvezda published his article "How They Lived in the Blockade": "Unburied corpses lay in houses, victims of hunger, frost, and shelling lay in apartments and doorways... Hunger drove people mad, a person gradually lost all understanding of what was possible and what was not. They were ready to chew belt leather, boil glue from wallpaper, cook dried flowers."
Officially, in December 1941, 26 people were held criminally liable for cannibalism, in January 1942—336 people, in two weeks of February—494, in March—over a thousand. The city lost up to 3,000 people daily.
Why Germany Was Not Found Guilty at the Nuremberg Trials
The most interesting detail is hidden in the fine print: Soviet prosecutors could not prove Germany's guilt in the "blockade" at the Nuremberg trials. Not because German forces did not shell the city or attempt to take it—but because systematic genocide of the civilian population, similar to the Holocaust or Babi Yar, could not be established.
What to do when the Germans are not guilty? Who is responsible for the death of over half a million Leningraders? Stalin found a solution: the leaders of Leningrad became guilty. In 1949–1950, the "Leningrad Affair" was constructed—several dozen people from the city's top leadership were executed, over 200 received various prison terms. After Stalin's death, they were rehabilitated "for lack of criminal elements."
No trial of "Comrade Stalin" took place. Instead, a myth emerged—a heroic myth of invincibility that, instead of reflection on the crimes of power, offered pride in victimhood.
The Structure of Substitution: What Russia Does with the Holocaust
Russia's strategy regarding the Holocaust operates on several levels:
Non-recognition of uniqueness. The Holocaust dissolves into the general category of "victims of Nazism" or "victims of the Great Patriotic War." The Jewish specificity—systematic, total, industrial extermination of a people as such—disappears.
Competition of victims. Russian officials regularly claim that the Nazis' true goal was the destruction of Slavs, not Jews. The Holocaust becomes an episode in the broader plan of "extermination of the Soviet people."
Appropriation of the liberator role. Russia insistently emphasizes that it was the Red Army that liberated Auschwitz. This is true, but in the Russian narrative, it serves not for solidarity with victims but for claims to moral exceptionalism.
Use of Holocaust rhetoric against opponents. The Kremlin calls Ukrainians "Nazis," Israeli actions in Gaza "genocide," and war against Ukraine "denazification." The Holocaust becomes a metaphor that loses concrete historical meaning.
Creation of an alternative sacrifice. The Leningrad blockade is constructed as Russia's equivalent of the Holocaust—an absolute measure of suffering that is not subject to critical understanding and serves to justify any actions by the authorities.
Mnemonic Warfare: January 27 as a Battlefield
When Soviet forces entered Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, they encountered what would become a symbol of absolute evil in the twentieth century. This date united the world in recognition: genocide is a crime against humanity that has no statute of limitations and knows no national borders.
Russia transformed this date into a Day of National Glory. Not memory of crimes, not warning about the danger of totalitarianism—but celebration of its own triumph.
This is a classic example of mnemonic warfare—memory politics as an instrument of geopolitical confrontation. States compete for dominance in the interpretation of historical dates. Choice of date, renaming, strengthening of holiday status—all these are instruments of struggle for symbolic capital.
After 2014, this confrontation became open. Putin's renaming of the holiday coincided with the annexation of Crimea and the beginning of war against Ukraine. Emphasis on "fighting fascism" and "Soviet contribution to European liberation" is not merely historical politics. It is legitimation of contemporary aggression through appeal to the past.
When the world speaks of the Holocaust, Russia speaks of itself. When the world recalls responsibility for genocide, Russia recalls its own heroism. The universal humanitarian agenda is replaced by a national-state one.
Why This Is Dangerous
The substitution of the Holocaust with the Leningrad blockade is not merely historical manipulation. It is a systematic construction that allows the Kremlin to:
Avoid responsibility. If the main victims of Nazism were "Slavs" or "the Soviet people," then questions about Soviet power's complicity in famine, deportations, and terror disappear. Instead of critical reflection—a cult of victimhood and victory.
Monopolize the liberator role. Russia claims exclusive right to speak about World War II, because "we liberated Europe from fascism." This justifies any contemporary aggression—after all, "we are fighting Nazism."
Block the universal language of human rights. When the Holocaust becomes "one among many crimes" rather than a universal criterion, universal ethics also disappears. Instead—particularistic logic of "our victims," "our memory," "our truth."
Legitimize new crimes. If the Leningrad blockade was a heroic feat, then other sieges—from Grozny to Mariupol—can be interpreted as "necessary severity." The cult of victimhood becomes a cult of violence.
Conclusion: Memory as Casus Belli
On January 27, the world remembers Auschwitz—a genocide committed by Nazi Germany against Jews. Russia remembers Leningrad—a genocide committed by Soviet power against its own population, presented as analogous to the Holocaust and attributed to German crime.
This difference is not a calendar detail. This is fundamental opposition of two types of historical memory: universal humanistic, which condemns genocide as absolute evil regardless of the nationality of victims and perpetrators, and particularistic imperial, which transforms the crimes of its own power against its own people into sacred sacrifice and resource for legitimation.
As long as Russia celebrates "military glory" where the world remembers genocide victims, it remains outside the common ethical framework. Not because it does not formally recognize the Holocaust, but because it systematically displaces it from consciousness, dissolves it in "general victims," replaces it with imperial myth.
And as long as this myth operates, any new catastrophe will be interpreted not as a crime but as a feat. Not as tragedy but as glory. Not as cause for reflection but as cause for pride.
This is not merely memory politics. This is the operating system of genocide that allows crimes to be repeated while celebrating past ones.