SUMMARY:

Pavel Polyan, one of the leading Russian historians of World War II and a well-known expert on war and post-war population policies, shares his understanding of the purpose and meaning of the creation of the Presidential Commission to Counter Attempts to Harm Russia’s Interests by Falsifying History. He singled out Russia as a safe haven for the “Holocaust deniers,” whose books are widely available in Russian, yet the Commission, in his view, has been created to fight other kinds of “falsifications” of the Nuremberg Tribunal’s decisions. Polyan evaluates the political views of the Commission’s members. He argues that Konstantin Zatulin, a Duma deputy from the ruling party, is the main ideologist and strategist of the Commission. Polyan analyzes his early initiatives, which logically led to the project of the Commission. He also evaluates the international and internal implications of the Commission’s activity. He admits the judicial value of historical judgment in the contemporary world and proposes a model for International Historical Arbitration. This institution would be strictly professional in terms of its membership, and it would provide expert opinion for various kinds of legal proceedings.