Abstract
This thesis examines the role of history in promoting nationalistic ideas through a case study of the academic and popular publications authored by Vladimir Medinskii, former minister of culture of the Russian Federation and current presidential aide to Vladimir Putin. As the historiography indicates, the Russian Federation is a multiethnic, multinational, multiconfessional state where, in lieu of common culture, history has offered a foundation for national identity—an identity often attacked by Russophobia. This thesis seeks to examine the leading role of Medinskii in combatting Russophobia through promoting positive, patriotic “myths,” including the single most important myth of all: that of the Great Patriotic War. By investigating history as explained by Medinskii’s controversial history dissertation, his bestselling Myths series, and his popular-academic Voina: Myths of the USSR 1939-1945, this thesis reveals how, through the merging of history and politics, history takes on an imperative role in Putin’s government as a tool for a unified Rossianin identity and legitimization of the state and its policies.