RED ARMY LIBERATION MISSION IN EUROPE IN 1944-1945 IN THE CONTEXT OF HISTORICAL MEMORY: NEW ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS AND THEIR INTERPRETATION
In modern foreign historiography there are a number of stable directions of falsifcation of the history of the Second World War that are rooted in the frst days of the Cold War. Among them the debunking and denigration of the Liberation mission of the Red Army occupies a special place. The very concept of "liberation from fascism" is being replaced by the “Soviet occupation” of Eastern Europe and the imposition of “totalitarian regimes” there; a negative image of the Red Army as a “gang of looters, rapists and murderers of civilians” is being deliberately created, in contrast to the alleged “noble Western allies”. At the same time, some negative facts of the behavior of Soviet soldiers are infated and absolutized, presented as mass and typical, the historical context, the sequence and course of events, cause-and-effect relations are completely ignored, the places of “executioners” and “victims” are changed. As a result, the image of "the Russian savage who occupied, corrected, ruined and defled cultural Europe" is consistently being introduced into the Western consciousness. The purpose of such interpretations is to form an anti-Russian mass consciousness in the West, to strike out the USSR (and modern Russia as its successor) from among the winners in the Second World War, as well as to “reformat” the Russian consciousness in a negative way in relation to its own history and its country. An adequate response to the distortion and gross falsifcation of the historical role of the USSR in the liberation of Europe can be made only on the basis of the introduction into scientifc circulation of new sources, frst of all, the recently declassifed archival documents, systematic presentation and analysis of documents and materials that reveal the whole vast and diverse set of problems and aspects that characterize this topic.