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Each of our readers, regardless of their nationality, political views, or religious beliefs, retains a part of the 20th-century pain in their soul. Pain and memory of those who died in the fight against Nazism. The history of the Nazi regimes of the last century, from Hitler to Pinochet, indisputably proves that the path to Nazism taken by any country has common features. Anyone who, under the guise of preserving the history of their country, rewrites or hides the true facts, does nothing but drag own people into the abyss while imposing this aggressive policy on neighboring states and the entire world.
In 1995, Umberto Eco, one of the most globally famous writers and author of such best-selling books as Foucault’s Pendulum and The Name of the Rose, took part in a Symposium held by the Italian and French Departments of Columbia University in New York (on the day when the anniversary of the liberation of Europe from Nazism is celebrated). Eco addressed the audience with his essay Eternal Fascism that contained a warning to the entire world about the fact that the threat of fascism and Nazism persists even after the end of World War II. The definitions coined by Eco differ from the classical definitions of both fascism and Nazism. One should not look for clear parallels in his formulations or point out possible coincidences; his approach is quite special and speaks rather about the psychological features of a certain ideology that he labelled ‘eternal fascism’. In the message to the world, the writer says that fascism begins neither with the Blackshirts’ brave marches, nor with the destruction of dissenters, nor with wars and concentration camps, but with a very specific worldview and attitude of people, with their cultural habits, dark instincts and unconscious impulses. They are not true source of the tragic events that shake countries and entire continents.
Many writers still resort to this topic in their journalistic and literary works, while often forgetting that, in this case, artistic fiction is inapproriate, and sometimes criminal. Published in Russia, the book State Policy of Glorification of Nazism in Armenia by military historian Oleg Kuznetsov reiterates Umberto Eco’s words: «We need an enemy to give people hope. Someone said that patriotism is the last refuge of cowards; those without moral principles usually wrap a flag around themselves, and the bastards always talk about the purity of the race. National identity is the last bastion of the dispossessed. But the meaning of identity is now based on hatred, on hatred for those who are not the same. Hatred has to be cultivated as a civic passion.»
Umberto Ecp knew firsthand what fascism was, since he grew up under Mussolini’s dictatorship. Born in Russia, Oleg Kuznetsov, just like almost every person of his age, developed his attitude to Nazism based not on publications and films, but primarily in the testimonies of eyewitnesses who survived in World War II. Not being a politican but speaking on behalf of ordinary Russian people, Kuznetsov begins his book with the words the leader of his home country said on May 9, 2019, on the day when victory over fascism is celebrated: «Today we see how in a number of states they consciosky distort the events of war, how they idolize those who, having forgotten about honour and human dignity, served the Nazis, how they shamelessly lie to their children, betray their ancestors». The Nuremberg trials have always been and will continue to be an obstacle to the revival of Nazism and aggression as state policies – both in our days and in the future. The trials’ results are a warning to all who see themselves as the chosen «rulers of the destinies» of states and peoples. The goal of the international criminal tribunal in Nuremberg was to condemn Nazi leaders (main ideological inspirers and headmen), as well as unjustifiably cruel actions and bloody outrages, not the entire German people.
In this regards, the UK representative to the trials said in his closing speech: « I repeat again that we do not seek to blame the people of Germany. Our goal is to protect him and give him the opportunity to rehabilitate himself and win the respect and friendship of the whole world.
But how can this be done if we leave in its midst unpunished and uncondemned these elements of Nazism which are mainly responsible for tyranny and crimes and which, as the tribunal can belive, cannot be turned to the path of freedom and justice?»
Oleg Kuznetsov’s book is a warning that is not aimed at inciting ethnic hatred between Armenia and Azerbaijan; it is a plea to common sense. The plea to exclude the falsification of historical facts (that make it possible to manipulate ordinary people) from the state policy. In his book, the author asks the question: «Glorification in various forms of Nazism in Armenia through memorialization of memory of the Nazi criminal Garegin Nzhdeh and his openly rasict theory of the tseharkon, the doctribe of the Armenian superman, is the subject of a purposefully and systematically conducted authorities and the Armenian diaspora have made such serious efforts in recent years to exalt the personality of Garegin Nzhdeh, and not someone else from among the Armenian nationalists who more contributed to the appearance of the Republic of Armenia on the political map of the world than Nzhdeh.»
Less than a year ago, the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly adopted a draft resolution (initiated by Russia) on combating «glorification of Nazism, neo-nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racis, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.» 121 states voted in favor of the document, 55 abstained, and two opposed it.
It is know that the issue of the unified struggle against Nazism and its modern followers has always been as fundamental for Azerbaijan and its political leadership (without any tolerance of even a slightest compromise) as it has been for Russia. President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly spoken – both at the United Nations assembly and at the meeting of the Council of CIS Heads of State – about the state policy of glorifying Nazism in Armenia, citing irrefutable facts to prove this assertion. At the meeting of CIS Council of Defence Ministers, President Aliyev not only supported Russia’s policy to fight Nazism and neo-Nazism on a global scale, but also expanded its scope, pointing to Armenia as the country of victorious Nazism. That said, Armenia’s representatives to the UN always voted for the adoptions of the resolution calling for the fight against any manifestations of Nazism, while the leadership of their country openly erected monuments to the Nazi criminal Nzhdeh in the cities of Armenia, renamed avenues, streets, squares and parks in his honor, established medals, minted coins, issued postage stamps and financed films telling about his «heroic deeds». In other words, it did everything known as «glorification of Nazism» in the parlance of the relevant UN General Assemby resolution.
Armenia now has new government, but the authoritis are not in a hurry to eliminate the Nazi legacy of their predecessors, thus demonstrating their commitment to the practices of glorification of Nazism that had been adopted in the country prior to the coup that took place two years ago. The new leaders of Armenia, headed by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, could not or did not want to radically change the situation in their country – and found themselves either hostages or ideological continuators of glorification of Nazism that had been practiced before their coming to power. In his nook, Oleg Kuznetsov says: «Starting with the Millenium, the authorities of Armenia have completely consciously and purposefully pursued and, despite the change of the political regime in the country in May 2018, still pursue an internal 21 political course towards the nation’s Nazification through state propaganda of the theory of tsehakron as a national ideology of all Armenians living both in Armenia and in diaspora, while simulating international efforts to combat glorification of Nazism and neo-Nazism in order to mask the cultivation of these phenomena in the territory under their control, including the occupied regions of Republic of Azerbaijan.»
Fridtjof Nansen, a Norwegian polar explorer and scientist, one noted: «The history of the Armenian people is a continuous experiment. Survival experiment». In what way will today’s experiments carried out by Armenian’s politicans and based on manipulations of historical facts affect the lives of ordinary residents of the country? The country that has given the world a number remarkable scientists, writers, and creative figures whose works were never marked with seal of Nazism. With Kuznetsov’s book revealing the historical facts, those who studied the ideology of German Nazism in depth might develop a different attitude to the words said by the Germany and felt guilty towards his people until the end of his days. At the end of his life, he wrote: «History is a policy that can no longer be corrected. Politics is a history that can still corrected».
Oleg Kuznetsov
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