In 2005 Putin called the collapse of the Soviet empire “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”. Was it an assessment of history or a guide to policy-making? Indeed, history narratives play an important part in shaping countries’ identities and (geo)political aims. Russian propaganda has heavily invested in symbolic imagery largely based on retrospective understandings of security grounded in the narratives of the 20th century, which directly and dramatically affects the security of Russia’s neighbours, first of all the Baltic states and Poland. The Kremlin-produced mediatised pseudo-reality was a key component of the preparation for an attack against Ukraine.
The core of this project lies in a transmedial analysis of strategic narratives with special attention paid to the Russian Federation’s strategic history narratives concerning the Baltic states, Ukraine and Poland. The project goals are to understand what the main aims of the strategic history narratives are; how they are constructed and related with other strategic goals of the Russia Federation’s public diplomacy; and to give an insight into formulating counterstrategies.