Interview of First Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy to the UN News Service on the occasion of the Victory Day
Every year UN Permanent Missions of former Soviet Republics used to organize memorial events dedicated to May 9: concerts, photo exhibits, movie screenings. This year the coronavirus thwarted all plans. However, the diplomatic missions of CIS states found an opportunity to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory. First Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia Dmitry Polyanskiy told Elena Vapnichnaya about online campaign #Victory75.
Dmitry Polyanskiy: This year we will be celebrating the Victory Day amidst rather unusual circumstances, even though it is a jubilee that we were thoroughly preparing for. May 9 is not just a date; this is the moving spirit of ours. We all pay tribute to our close and loved ones, to our compatriots who put their lives on the altar of Victory. Thanks to them we are living in peace and have opportunities for development. Indeed, we cannot organize the events that we were going to, but it does not mean we should not celebrate this day. We had a brainstorming round with our colleagues from CIS Missions and decided to use the potential of social media. So jointly with our press office we launched this project #Victory75.
For almost a week by now, we have been making publications on Twitter and Facebook with hashtag #Victory75. Every partaking Mission searches for materials about compatriots who fought, performed acts of valor, or whose story may be interesting in the context of the war and the Victory and make posts about them in Russian and in English. It is very interesting, and our colleagues are very responsive to that. The number of publications is growing daily, the materials highlight rather noteworthy facts. They tell about those who fought in battles, worked on the home front, and about peculiar features of the Republics. For example, during the evacuation Uzbekistan accepted a great many of people, which was an immense help for the whole country. Our colleagues from Uzbekistan would like to highlight this, and we perfectly understand this. Every state names its heroes, but all of them were fighting in one army, for one and the same country, they were fighting for the good, for peace, and all of them deserve being remembered. Of course, this is a selective genre. We cannot mention everyone, but these days we remember all of them and pay tribute for what they did. Therefore no one will be forgotten. That’s for sure.
As I said, we have had grandiose plans [for these jubilee celebrations], we do not cancel them. We will see how the situation with the coronavirus unfolds in New York and how the United Nations is going to operate. Maybe we will fulfil these plans later.
At this moment it [our joint project #Victory75] is a good opportunity to remind about the memorial week that is going on at the moment. We have put on St. George’s ribbons, and we have mostly done it for ourselves, because almost no one sees us wearing them. Still, it is more important for us than for the world outside. This is our duty to the memory of those who fought in that war.
Question: 75 years have passed. You also mentioned the UN. Probably, the two anniversaries can be celebrated at once when we mark 75 years since the creation of the United Nations, which was founded thanks to the ending of World War 2. Back then the world’s motto was “Never Again”. However sometimes the humankind fails to learn its lessons. Today we see that the memory of the war vanishes, in particular among the young generation. Besides, neo-Nazis and adepts of white race superiority raise their heads, we hear the words of antisemitism, especially on social media. How can we ensure that the crimes of those days never go forgotten, that today’s generation be able to resist these recurring atavisms?
Dmitry Polyanskiy: This is our shared responsibility which we should strive to uphold. The situation is changing year-to-year. Living witnesses of the war and of the Victory become fewer in number. The young generation, especially in European countries and in the United States, initially had no big knowledge of the war. Now this knowledge is getting scarcer.
Today we see many strange (to put it mildly) versions pertaining to the war come to the forefront. Sometimes it is hard for young people even to imagine the sufferings and ordeals that the war generation had to go through. The constraints that we face now during the pandemic may seem to them as posing extreme tribulation a human can stand and demanding the utmost sacrifice. Staying at home and being limited to rare outings to the closest store or park already means a great deed for them. Of course, it is difficult to believe that what they are told happened during the war (which was not that long ago) was real. One needs to remind the young people of the reality of those days by turning to facts and historical sources. We do this.
Also, there are many of those who elevate the distortion of history and its interpretation for political purposes to the rank of state policy. This is the most sorrowful thing which we do our best to counter. It raises our grave concern. This trend can only be opposed by clarifying what really happened, citing facts and arguments. This discussion may never bring the absolute desired result. There will always be those who, counter to any common sense and any established facts, will assert things that are unconceivable from a historical viewpoint, who will twist true events, make parallels that stand up to no criticism.
To my mind, preservation of true and just historical memory about the war is crucially important, among other things for keeping peace today. Otherwise those trends and oppositions of states, including with regard to historic events, will only intensify. Still I think that common sense will prevail, and that “historical foam” that induces negation of the evident will abate, wash away one day. I hope it happens sooner rather than later. All of us will only benefit from this.
Question: We have mentioned the coronavirus and we cannot leave behind this topic. There is a huge, unprecedented pandemic. One can often hear that this is the greatest threat and challenge to humanity ever since World War 2. What is meant here is that there is a common enemy that can be defeated only by joint efforts. Do you think such parallels are appropriate?
Dmitry Polyanskiy: Such parallels cannot be excluded. There is no doubt that all countries must join efforts, abandon stereotypes in order to move forward and share the results of scientific research. All of this brings us closer to victory over the coronavirus which we should admit is still very far from where we are.
However, we should not draw direct parallels, because in the situation with COVID-19 there is no one to punish. At war it was clear that there were aggressor- states, there was absolutely misanthropic philosophy and psychology. Afterwards there was the Nuremberg process, and concrete individuals were condemned. Who is to be condemned for the virus? Attempts to put the blame on China do not ring a bell with me personally, because, frankly speaking, they look strange. We know cases when virus spread started off from the area of other states, including the US. No one has got a remedy; therefore, it is unacceptable to proclaim one single country to be the source of the virus that should be responsible for everything. By this aspect the topic of war differs from the topic of virus.
However, what the two have in common is the need to join efforts, share best practices rather than try to keep them for political goals in order to do the chest thumping afterwards crying something like: “It was us who developed the vaccine against the coronavirus!” If all countries cooperated to the needed extent, we would reach the result much faster. Now we still have reserves and an opportunity to draw lessons from our mistakes. It is not a beauty contest: no one should present their efforts and results as a “check gauge” and for whatever reason say: “It was us who effectively countered the coronavirus, while others did no one knows what”. This is an absolutely political goal and it seems some try to play this card. This should not be the case. Such things are rather difficult to imagine when speaking about war either.
Another commonality is the fact that people are dying. We lose them every day. Then, the thing this epidemic has in common with a war is that there are heroes. I mean doctors in the first place – they risk their lives, they literally do, to save the lives of others. But not only them. Heroes are people who continue working, e.g. store assistants, whom no one thinks to be heroes, whereas they actually are. What would our life be without them? It would be much more complicated; many more problems would arise. This war against the virus also has its heroes.
Question: What does Victory mean personally to you? Did any of your relatives fight on the frontline or on the home front? We know that the war touched upon almost every household. How do you plan to celebrate May 9 amidst such unusual circumstances?
Dmitry Polyanskiy: By all means, Victory Day is meaningful to everyone in Russia. I think for my generation and for me personally it means vivid childhood memories, despite the fact that when I was born it had been almost 30 years since the end of the war. I have clear memories of our communication with veterans who were young and who could tell us a lot.
My family was also affected by World War 2 and the Great Patriotic War. Fortunately, all my relatives who fought got back home alive. Some of them had been in battles, others worked on the home front. Some part of my relatives had to do with aviation, that is why they contributed their efforts to the rise of the Soviet aviation. It is well-known that USSR’s rapid production of aircraft for the front was one of the game-changers that caused a turning point in the Great Patriotic War. Some of my relatives worked in this area after being evacuated. So, my family made a diverse contribution that is why we always mark the Victory Day as a very special date.
It is a pity that this year we will have to do without our usual May events and gatherings in-person, but it will in no way prevent us from calling our relatives and friends. There is Zoom and many other applications that let you have many people “at one table”. In my family, we will definitely celebrate, raise a traditional toast to the Victory Day and watch broadcast from Moscow. I know that there will be no parade, but an air parade will take place, the “Immortal Regiment” will go online this year. If I get it right, it will also be held here in the United States – this is an extremely important event. I am sure that even if we “skip” this year, we will make up for it later. As I said, there is still some space in 2020. But even if it does not happen – the tradition will not die. There are a great many enthusiasts in Russia, in states that used to be part of the USSR, and in other states that strive to uphold this tradition and build upon it. This is our duty to the veterans who are so few among the living and who cannot physically take full part in related events. Especially in the era of the coronavirus.
However, this is not a reason to forget our heroes and stop celebrating the dates that we can be proud of and not only in Russia or the Republics that used to be part of the Soviet Union, but also in Europe, in America. Victory over Nazism took too much efforts of too many people to simply forget about it. The better we preserve the memory of those events, the more reliable are our prospects for a peaceful future and the more chances we have to avoid repeating the mistakes made 75 or 80 years ago when egoism, shortsightedness, reckless policy and minute considerations gained the upper hand. We need to take this into account and by all means avoid at the current stage.
