Calmly about History and Historians: the Closed WWII Archives (14.12.2021)

A methodological dispute by Vitaliy Dribnytsya on how a historian works with sources. The key part concerns the secrecy of Russia’s WWII military archives: by Dribnytsya’s account they hold ~20 million filing units, of which ~17.5 million are classified “top secret,” and the bulk were sealed about ten years ago. Access is granted only to “regime” historians close to the authorities, such as Aleksei Isaev, and even they receive only selected folders; independent researchers (Alexander Gogun) therefore rely on the open German archives (the Bundesarchiv) and reach different conclusions. For contrast, Dribnytsya cites the fully declassified KGB archive in Kyiv. A source for the article on the cult of the “Great Victory” — it expands the closed-archives claim with specifics and mechanism.