Falsification of history
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Historical negationism, also called denialism, is falsification or distortion of the historical record. It should not be conflated with ''
historical revisionism In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account. It usually involves challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) views held by professional scholars about a historical event or times ...
'', a broader term that extends to newly evidenced, fairly reasoned academic reinterpretations of history."The two leading critical exposés of Holocaust denial in the United States were written by historians Deborah Lipstadt (1993) and Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman (2000). These scholars make a distinction between historical revisionism and denial. Revisionism, in their view, entails a refinement of existing knowledge about an historical event, not a denial of the event itself, that comes through the examination of new empirical evidence or a re-examination or reinterpretation of existing evidence. Legitimate historical revisionism acknowledges a 'certain body of irrefutable evidence' or a 'convergence of evidence' that suggest that an event – like the black plague, American slavery, or the Holocaust – did in fact occur (Lipstadt 1993:21; Shermer & Grobman 200:34). Denial, on the other hand, rejects the entire foundation of historical evidence. ... " Ronald J. Berger. ''Fathoming the Holocaust: A Social Problems Approach'', Aldine Transaction, 2002, , p. 154. In attempting to revise the past, illegitimate historical revisionism may use techniques inadmissible in proper historical discourse, such as presenting known forged documents as genuine, inventing ingenious but implausible reasons for distrusting genuine documents, attributing conclusions to books and sources that report the opposite, manipulating statistical series to support the given point of view, and deliberately mistranslating texts.''Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial'', by
Richard J. Evans Sir Richard John Evans (born 29 September 1947) is a British historian of 19th- and 20th-century Europe with a focus on Germany. He is the author of eighteen books, including his three-volume ''The Third Reich Trilogy'' (2003–2008). Evans was ...
, 2001, . p. 145. The author is a professor of Modern History, at the University of Cambridge, and was a major expert-witness in the ''Irving v. Lipstadt'' trial; the book presents his perspective of the trial, and the expert-witness report, including his research about the Dresden death count.
Some countries, such as Germany, have criminalized the negationist revision of certain historical events, while others take a more cautious position for various reasons, such as protection of free speech; others mandate negationist views, such as California, where schoolchildren have been explicitly prevented from learning about the California genocide. Notable examples of negationism include Holocaust denial, Armenian genocide denial, the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, the myth of the clean ''Wehrmacht'',
Japanese history textbook controversies Japanese history textbook controversies involve controversial content in government-approved history textbooks used in the secondary education (junior high schools and high schools) of Japan. The controversies primarily concern the nationalist ri ...
,
Holodomor denial Holodomor denial ( uk, заперечення Голодомору, translit=zaperechennia Holodomoru) is the claim that the Holodomor, a large-scale, man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932–1933, did not occur.Richard Pipes, ''iarchive ...
and historiography in the Soviet Union during the
Stalin era Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
.Klaus Mehnert, ''Stalin Versus Marx: the Stalinist historical doctrine'' (Translation of ''Weltrevolution durch Weltgeschichte'') Port Washington NY: Kennikat Press 1972 (1952), on the illegitimate use of history in the 1934–1952 period.Roger D. Markwick, ''Rewriting history in Soviet Russia : the politics of revisionist historiography, 1956–1974'' New York; Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001, on legitimate Soviet historiography particularly in the post 1956 period. Some notable historical negationists include Grover Furr,
Arthur Butz Arthur R. Butz is an associate professor of electrical engineering at Northwestern University and a Holocaust denier, best known as the author of the pseudohistorical book ''The Hoax of the Twentieth Century''. He achieved tenure in 1974 and curr ...
, David Irving, Ernst Zundel, Shudo Higashinakano, Shinzo Abe,
Bongbong Marcos Ferdinand "Bongbong" Romualdez Marcos Jr. ( , , ; born September 13, 1957), commonly referred to by the initials PBBM or BBM, is a Filipino politician who is the 17th and current president of the Philippines. He previously served as a senat ...
, and Keith Windschuttle. In literature, the consequences of historical negationism have been imaginatively depicted in some works of fiction, such as '' Nineteen Eighty-Four'', by
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
. In modern times, negationism may spread via new media, such as the Internet.


Origin of the term

The term ''negationism'' (''négationnisme'') was first coined by the French historian Henry Rousso in his 1987 book ''The Vichy Syndrome'' which looked at the French popular memory of Vichy France and the French Resistance. Rousso posited that it was necessary to distinguish between legitimate
historical revisionism In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account. It usually involves challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) views held by professional scholars about a historical event or times ...
in Holocaust studies and politically motivated denial of the Holocaust, which he termed negationism.


Purposes

Usually, the purpose of historical negation is to achieve a national, political aim, by transferring war guilt, demonizing an enemy, providing an illusion of victory, or preserving a friendship.Harold D. Lasswell
Propaganda Technique in World War I.
1927, MIT Press, pp. xxii–xxvii
Sometimes the purpose of a revised history is to sell more books or to attract attention with a newspaper headline.Matthew d'Ancona
History men battle over Britain's future.
The Times, 9 May 1994; ProQuest Database (. Retrieved 12 October 2011).
The historian James M. McPherson said that negationists would want revisionist history understood as "a consciously falsified or distorted interpretation of the past to serve partisan or ideological purposes in the present".McPherson disagrees with this as the sole definition of revisionist history – he argues rightly that revisionism (academically) is the 'lifeblood of history.' James McPherson
Revisionist Historians
Perspectives, 2003. American Historical Association.


Ideological influence

The principal functions of negationist history are the abilities to control ideological influence and to control political influence. In "History Men Battle over Britain's Future", Michael d'Ancona said that historical negationists "seem to have been given a collective task in nation's cultural development, the full significance of which is emerging only now: To redefine ationalstatus in a changing world".Matthew d'Ancona
History men battle over Britain's future.
The Times, 9 May 1994; ProQuest Database (Retrieved 12 October 2011).
History is a social resource that contributes to shaping national identity, culture, and the public memory. Through the study of history, people are imbued with a particular cultural identity; therefore, by negatively revising history, the negationist can craft a specific, ideological identity. Because historians are credited as people who single-mindedly pursue truth, by way of fact, negationist historians capitalize on the historian's professional credibility, and present their pseudohistory as true scholarship. By adding a measure of credibility to the work of revised history, the ideas of the negationist historian are more readily accepted in the public mind. As such, professional historians recognize the revisionist practice of historical negationism as the work of "truth-seekers" finding different truths in the historical record to fit their political, social, and ideological contexts.


Political influence

History provides insight into past political policies and consequences, and thus assists people in extrapolating political implications for contemporary society. Historical negationism is applied to cultivate a specific
political myth A political myth is an ideological narrative that is believed by social groups. In 1975, Henry Tudor defined it in the book ''Political Myth''. He said that myths are believed to be true even if they may be false, and they are devices with dramatic ...
, sometimes with official consent from the government, whereby self-taught, amateur, and dissident academic historians either manipulate or misrepresent historical accounts to achieve political ends. Since the late 1930s in the Soviet Union, the ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and historiography in the Soviet Union treated reality and the party line as the same intellectual entity, especially in regards to the Russian Civil War and peasants rebellions; Soviet historical negationism advanced a specific, political, and ideological agenda about Russia and its place in world history.


Techniques

Historical negationism applies the techniques of research, quotation, and presentation for
deception Deception or falsehood is an act or statement that misleads, hides the truth, or promotes a belief, concept, or idea that is not true. It is often done for personal gain or advantage. Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda and sleight o ...
of the reader and denial of the historical record. In support of the "revised history" perspective, the negationist historian uses
false documents A false document is a technique by which an author aims to increase verisimilitude in a work of fiction by inventing and inserting or mentioning documents that appear to be factual. The goal of a false document is to convince an audience that what ...
as genuine sources, presents specious reasons to distrust genuine documents, exploits published opinions by quoting out of historical context, manipulates
statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...
, and mistranslates texts in other languages. The revision techniques of historical negationism operate in the intellectual space of public debate for the advancement of a given interpretation of history and the cultural perspective of the "revised history".Dionne, E.J. Jr
Cold War Scholars Fault Stalin: Soviet Historians Lean to U.S. View
The Washington Post. 26 July 1990. LexisNexis Database (Retrieved 12 October 2011). First Section, p. A3.
As a document, the revised history is used to negate the validity of the factual, documentary record, and so reframe explanations and perceptions of the discussed historical event, to deceive the reader, the listener, and the viewer; therefore, historical negationism functions as a technique of
propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
.Nagorski, Andrew
Russia's New Normal: The Cold War may be over, but that doesn't mean the threat from the Kremlin has entirely disappeared.
Newsweek; World Affairs. 17 March 2008. LexisNexis Database(. Retrieved 12 October 2011)Vol. 151 No 11.
Rather than submit their works for peer review, negationist historians rewrite history and use logical fallacies to construct arguments that will obtain the desired results, a "revised history" that supports an agenda – political, ideological, religious, etc. In the practice of historiography, the British historian
Richard J. Evans Sir Richard John Evans (born 29 September 1947) is a British historian of 19th- and 20th-century Europe with a focus on Germany. He is the author of eighteen books, including his three-volume ''The Third Reich Trilogy'' (2003–2008). Evans was ...
describes the technical differences, between professional historians and negationist historians, commenting: "Reputable and professional historians do not suppress parts of quotations from documents that go against their own case, but take them into account, and, if necessary, amend their own case, accordingly. They do not present, as genuine, documents which they know to be forged, just because these forgeries happen to back up what they are saying. They do not invent ingenious, but implausible, and utterly unsupported reasons for distrusting genuine documents, because these documents run counter to their arguments; again, they amend their arguments, if this is the case, or, indeed, abandon them altogether. They do not consciously attribute their own conclusions to books and other sources, which, in fact, on closer inspection, actually say the opposite. They do not eagerly seek out the highest possible figures in a series of statistics, independently of their reliability, or otherwise, simply because they want, for whatever reason, to maximize the figure in question, but rather, they assess all the available figures, as impartially as possible, to arrive at a number that will withstand the critical scrutiny of others. They do not knowingly mistranslate sources in foreign languages to make them more serviceable to themselves. They do not willfully invent words, phrases, quotations, incidents and events, for which there is no historical evidence, to make their arguments more plausible."
Richard J. Evans Sir Richard John Evans (born 29 September 1947) is a British historian of 19th- and 20th-century Europe with a focus on Germany. He is the author of eighteen books, including his three-volume ''The Third Reich Trilogy'' (2003–2008). Evans was ...
. David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial: Electronic Edition
6. General Conclusion
Paragraphs 6.20,6.21


Deception

Deception includes falsifying information, obscuring the truth, and lying to manipulate public opinion about the historical event discussed in the revised history. The negationist historian applies the techniques of deception to achieve either a political or an ideological goal, or both. The field of history distinguishes among history books based upon credible, verifiable sources, which were
peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
before publication; and deceptive history books, based upon unreliable sources, which were not submitted for peer review. The distinction among types of history books rests upon the research techniques used in writing a history. Verifiability, accuracy, and openness to criticism are central tenets of historical scholarship. When these techniques are sidestepped, the presented historical information might be deliberately deceptive, a "revised history".


Denial

Denial is defensively protecting information from being shared with other historians, and claiming that facts are untrue, especially denial of the war crimes and
crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
perpetrated in the course of the World War II (1939–45) and the Holocaust (1933–45). The negationist historian protects the historical-revisionism project by
blame shifting Blame is the act of censuring, holding responsible, or making negative statements about an individual or group that their actions or inaction are socially or morally irresponsible, the opposite of praise. When someone is morally responsible for d ...
, censorship, distraction, and
media manipulation Media manipulation is a series of related techniques in which partisans create an image or argument that favors their particular interests. Such tactics may include the use of logical fallacies, manipulation, outright deception (disinformation) ...
; occasionally, denial by protection includes risk management for the physical security of revisionist sources.


Relativization and trivialization

Comparing certain historical atrocities to other crimes is the practice of relativization, interpretation by moral judgements, to alter public perception of the first historical atrocity. Although such comparisons often occur in negationist history, their pronouncement is not usually part of revisionist intentions upon the historical facts, but an opinion of
moral judgement Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of cond ...
. * The Holocaust and Nazism: The historian Deborah Lipstadt says that the concept of "comparable Allied wrongs", such as the expulsion of Germans after World War II from Nazi-colonized lands and the formal Allied war crimes, is at the centre of, and is a continually repeated theme of, contemporary Holocaust denial, and that such relativization presents "immoral equivalencies". * Proponents of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy often use historical examples of non- chattel slavery to claim that enslaved white and black slaves faced the same conditions. While other forms are abhorrent, only the former involves legally-mandated generational slavery. * Connected to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy is the
Irish slaves myth The Irish slaves myth is a fringe pseudohistorical narrative that conflates the penal transportation and indentured servitude of Irish people during the 17th and 18th centuries, with the hereditary chattel slavery experienced by the forebea ...
, a pseudo-historical narrative which conflates the experiences of
Irish indentured servants Irish indentured servants were Irish people who became indentured servants in territories under the control of the British Empire, such as the British West Indies (particularly Barbados, Jamaica and the Leeward Islands), British North America and ...
and enslaved Africans in the
Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...
. This myth, which was historically promoted by
Irish nationalists Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cu ...
such as John Mitchel, has in the modern-day been promoted by white supremacists in the United States to negate the mistreatment experienced by
African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
(such as racism and segregation) and oppose demands for slavery
reparations Reparation(s) may refer to: Christianity * Restitution (theology), the Christian doctrine calling for reparation * Acts of reparation, prayers for repairing the damages of sin History *War reparations **World War I reparations, made from G ...
.


Examples


Book burning

Repositories of literature have been targeted throughout history (e.g., the
Library of Alexandria The Great Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. The Library was part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion, which was dedicated to the Muses, th ...
, Grand Library of Baghdad), burning of the liturgical and historical books of the
St. Thomas Christians The Saint Thomas Christians, also called Syrian Christians of India, ''Marthoma Suriyani Nasrani'', ''Malankara Nasrani'', or ''Nasrani Mappila'', are an Ethnoreligious group, ethno-religious community of Indian Christians in the state of Ker ...
by the
archbishop of Goa The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Goa and Daman ( la, Archidioecesis Goanae et Damanensis, gom, Gõy ani Damanv Mha-Dhormprant, pt, Arquidiocese de Goa e Damão) encompasses the Goa state and the Damaon territory in the Konkan r ...
Aleixo de Menezes Archbishop Aleixo de Menezes or Alexeu de Jesu de Meneses (25 January 1559 – 3 May 1617) was Roman Catholic Archbishop of Goa, Archbishop of Braga, Portugal, and Viceroy of Portugal during the Philippine Dynasty. Biographical sketch Aleixo was ...
, including recently, such as the 1981 Burning of Jaffna library and the destruction of Iraqi libraries by ISIS during the fall of Mosul in 2014. Similarly, British officials would destroy documents in
Operation Legacy Operation Legacy was a British Colonial Office (later Foreign Office) programme to destroy or hide files, to prevent them being inherited by its ex-colonies. It ran from the 1950s until the 1970s, when the decolonisation of the British Empire was ...
to avoid records on colonial rule to fall into hands of countries declaring independence from Britain and scrutiny of the British state.


Chinese book burning

The '' Burning of books and burying of scholars'' (), or "Fires of Qin", refers to the burning of writings and slaughter of scholars during the Qin Dynasty of
Ancient China The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapte ...
, between the period of 213 and 210 BC. "Books" at this point refers to writings on bamboo strips, which were then bound together. This contributed to the loss to history of many philosophical theories of proper government (known as "the Hundred Schools of Thought"). The official philosophy of government (" legalism") survived.


United States history


Confederate revisionism

The historical negationism of American Civil War revisionists and
Neo-Confederate Neo-Confederates are groups and individuals who portray the Confederate States of America and its actions during the American Civil War in a positive light. The League of the South, the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other neo-Confederate organ ...
s claims that the Confederate States (1861–65) were the defenders rather than the instigators of the American Civil War, and that the Confederacy's motivation for secession from the United States was the maintenance of the Southern states' rights and limited government, rather than the preservation and expansion of chattel slavery. Regarding Neo-Confederate revisionism of the U.S. Civil War, the historian Brooks D. Simpson says: "This is an active attempt to reshape historical memory, an effort by white Southerners to find historical justifications for present-day actions. The neo–Confederate movement's ideologues have grasped that if they control how people remember the past, they'll control how people approach the present and the future. Ultimately, this is a very conscious war for memory and heritage. It's a quest for
legitimacy Legitimacy, from the Latin ''legitimare'' meaning "to make lawful", may refer to: * Legitimacy (criminal law) * Legitimacy (family law) * Legitimacy (political) See also * Bastard (law of England and Wales) * Illegitimacy in fiction * Legit (d ...
, the eternal quest for justification." In the early 20th century,
Mildred Rutherford Mildred Lewis "Miss Millie" Rutherford (July 16, 1851 – August 15, 1928) was a prominent white supremacist educator and author from Athens, Georgia. She served the Lucy Cobb Institute, as its head and in other capacities, for over forty years, ...
, the historian general of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), led the attack against American history textbooks that did not present the " Lost Cause of the Confederacy" version of the history of the U.S. Civil War. To that pedagogical end, Rutherford assembled a "massive collection" of documents that included "essay contests on the glory of the
Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
and personal tributes to faithful slaves". About the historical negationism of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the historian
David Blight David William Blight (born 1949) is the Sterling Professor of History, of African American Studies, and of American Studies and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. Previous ...
says: "All UDC members and leaders were not as virulently
racist Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
as Rutherford, but all, in the name of a reconciled nation, participated in an enterprise that deeply influenced the white supremacist vision of Civil War memory."


California genocide

Between 1846 and 1873, following the
conquest of California The Conquest of California, also known as the Conquest of Alta California or the California Campaign, was an important military campaign of the Mexican–American War carried out by the United States in Alta California (modern-day California), t ...
by the United States, the region's
Indigenous Californian The indigenous peoples of California (known as Native Californians) are the indigenous inhabitants who have lived or currently live in the geographic area within the current boundaries of California before and after the arrival of Europeans. ...
population plummeted from around 150,000 to around 30,000 due to disease, famine, forced removals, slavery, and massacres. Many historians refer to the massacres as the California genocide. Between 9,500 and 16,000 California Natives were killed by both government forces and white settlers in massacres during this period. Despite the well documented evidence of the widespread massacres and atrocities, the public school curriculum and history textbooks approved by the
California Department of Education The California Department of Education is an agency within the Government of California that oversees public education. The department oversees funding and testing, and holds local educational agencies accountable for student achievement. Its st ...
ignore the history of this genocide. According to author Clifford Trafzer, although many historians have pushed for recognition of the genocide in public school curricula, government-approved textbooks omit mention of the genocide because of the dominance of conservative publishing companies with an ideological impetus to deny the genocide, the fear of publishing companies being branded as un-American for discussing it, and the unwillingness of state and federal government officials to acknowledge the genocide due to the possibility of having to pay reparations to indigenous communities affected by it.


War crimes


Japanese war crimes

The post-war minimization of the war crimes of Japanese imperialism is an example of "illegitimate" historical revisionism; some contemporary Japanese revisionists, such as Yūko Iwanami (granddaughter of General Hideki Tojo), propose that Japan's invasion of China, and World War II, itself, were justified reactions to the racist Western imperialism of the time. On 2 March 2007, Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe denied that the military had forced women into
sexual slavery Sexual slavery and sexual exploitation is an attachment of any ownership rights, right over one or more people with the intent of Coercion, coercing or otherwise forcing them to engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activities. This include ...
during the war, saying, "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion". Before he spoke, some Liberal Democratic Party legislators also sought to revise Yōhei Kōno's apology to former
comfort women Comfort women or comfort girls were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term "comfort women" is a translation of the Japanese '' ia ...
in 1993; likewise, there was the controversial negation of the six-week Nanking Massacre in 1937–1938. Shinzō Abe was general secretary of a group of parliament members concerned with history education (Japanese: 日本の前途と歴史教育を考える若手議員の会) that is associated with the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, and was a special advisor to Nippon Kaigi, which are two openly revisionist groups denying, downplaying, or justifying various
Japanese war crimes The Empire of Japan committed war crimes in many Asian-Pacific countries during the period of Japanese militarism, Japanese imperialism, primarily during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Second Sino-Japanese and Pacific Wars. These incidents have b ...
. Editor-in-chief of the conservative '' Yomiuri Shimbun''
Tsuneo Watanabe is a Japanese journalist and businessman. He is the Representative Director, Editor-in-Chief of the Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings company, which publishes the largest Japanese daily newspaper ''Yomiuri Shimbun'' and substantially controls the largest J ...
criticized the Yasukuni Shrine as a bastion of revisionism: "The Yasukuni Shrine runs a museum where they show items in order to encourage and worship militarism. It's wrong for the prime minister to visit such a place". Other critics note that men, who would contemporarily be perceived as "Korean" and "Chinese", are enshrined for the military actions they effected as Japanese Imperial subjects.


Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

The '' Hibakusha'' ("explosion-affected people") of Hiroshima and Nagasaki seek compensation from their government and criticize it for failing to "accept responsibility for having instigated and then prolonged an aggressive war long after Japan's defeat was apparent, resulting in a heavy toll in Japanese, Asian and American lives". Historians Hill and Koshiro have stated that attempts to minimize the importance of the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...
is revisionist history.
EB Sledge Eugene Bondurant Sledge (November 4, 1923 – March 3, 2001) was a United States Marine, university professor, and author. His 1981 memoir ''With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa'' chronicled his combat experiences during World War II ...
expressed concern that such revisionism, in his words "mellowing", would allow the harsh facts of the history that led to the bombings to be forgotten.


Croatian war crimes in World War II

Some Croats, including some high-ranked officials and political leaders during the 1990s and far-right organization members, have attempted to minimize the magnitude of the genocide perpetrated against Serbs and other ethnic minorities in the World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, the Independent State of Croatia. By 1989, the future President of Croatia
Franjo Tuđman Franjo Tuđman (; 14 May 1922 – 10 December 1999), also written as Franjo Tudjman, was a Croatian politician and historian. Following the country's independence from Yugoslavia, he became the first president of Croatia and served as p ...
(who had been a
Partisan Partisan may refer to: Military * Partisan (weapon), a pole weapon * Partisan (military), paramilitary forces engaged behind the front line Films * ''Partisan'' (film), a 2015 Australian film * ''Hell River'', a 1974 Yugoslavian film also know ...
during World War II), had embraced Croatian nationalism and published '' Horrors of War: Historical Reality and Philosophy'', in which he questioned the official number of victims killed by the Ustaše during the Second World War, particularly at the Jasenovac concentration camp. Yugoslav and
Serbian historiography Serbian historiography ( sr-Cyrl, српска историографија, srpska istoriografija) refers to the historiography (methodology of history studies) of the Serb people since the founding of Serbian statehood. The development can b ...
had long exaggerated the number of victims at the camp. Tuđman criticized the long-standing figures, but also described the camp as a "work camp", giving an estimate of between 30,000 and 40,000 deaths. Tuđman's government's toleration of Ustaša symbols and their crimes often dismissed in public, frequently strained relations with Israel. Croatia's far-right often advocates the false theory that Jasenovac was a "labour camp" where mass murder did not take place. In 2017, two videos of former Croatian president Stjepan Mesić from 1992 were made public in which he stated that Jasenovac wasn't a death camp. The far-right NGO "The Society for Research of the Threefold Jasenovac Camp" also advocates this disproven theory, in addition to claiming that the camp was used by the Yugoslav authorities following the war to imprison Ustasha members and regular Home Guard army troops until 1948, then alleged
Stalinists Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...
until 1951. Its members include journalist
Igor Vukić Igor Vukić (born 26 January 1966) is a Croatian journalist and historical negationist. He is an author of books on the Jasenovac concentration camp, including ''Radni logor Jasenovac'' (''Jasenovac Labour Camp''), which advances his thesis that ...
, who wrote his own book advocating the theory, Catholic priest
Stjepan Razum Stjepan Razum is a Croatian church historian and Roman Catholic priest. He is the director of the Archdiocesan Archives in Zagreb and a member of the Commission for the Croat martyrology of the Episcopal Conference of Bosnia and Herzegovina and ...
and academic
Josip Pečarić Josip Pečarić (born 2 September 1948) is a Croatian mathematician. He is a professor of mathematics in the Faculty of Textile Technology at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and is a full member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. ...
. The ideas promoted by its members have been amplified by mainstream media interviews and book tours. The last book, "The Jasenovac Lie Revealed" written by Vukić, prompted the Simon Wiesenthal Center to urge Croatian authorities to ban such works, noting that they "would immediately be banned in Germany and Austria and rightfully so". In 2016, Croatian filmmaker
Jakov Sedlar Jakov Sedlar (born 6 November 1952) is a Croatian film director and producer. A former cultural attaché during the 1990s in the Franjo Tuđman government, his documentaries promote Croatian nationalist views through propaganda. His 2016 docu ...
released a documentary '' Jasenovac – The Truth'' which advocated the same theories, labeling the camp as a "collection and labour camp". The film contained alleged falsifications and forgeries, in addition to denial of crimes and hate speech towards politicians and journalists.


Serbian war crimes in World War II

Among far-right and nationalist groups, denial and revisionism of Serbian war crimes are carried out through the downplaying of Milan Nedić and Dimitrije Ljotić's roles in the extermination of Serbia's Jews in concentration camps, in the German-occupied
Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia The Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia (german: Gebiet des Militärbefehlshabers in Serbien; sr, Подручје Војног заповедника у Србији, Područje vojnog zapovednika u Srbiji) was the area of the Kin ...
by a number of Serbian historians. Serbian collaborationist armed forces were involved, either directly or indirectly, in the mass killings of Jews as well as Roma and those Serbs who sided with any anti-German resistance and the killing of many Croats and Muslims. Since the end of the war, Serbian collaboration in the Holocaust has been the subject of historical revisionism by Serbian leaders. In 1993, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts listed Nedić among '' The 100 most prominent Serbs''. There is also the denial of
Chetnik The Chetniks ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Четници, Četnici, ; sl, Četniki), formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland and the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationa ...
collaboration with Axis forces and crimes committed during World War II. Serbian historian Jelena Djureinovic poists in her book ''The Politics of Memory of the Second World War in Contemporary Serbia: Collaboration, Resistance and Retribution'' that "during those years, the WWII nationalist Chetniks have been recast as an
anti-fascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...
movement equivalent to
Tito Tito may refer to: People Mononyms * Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980), commonly known mononymously as Tito, Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman * Roberto Arias (1918–1989), aka Tito, Panamanian international lawyer, diplomat, and journ ...
's Partisans, and as victims of communism". The glorification of the Chetnik movement has now become the central theme of Serbia's WWII memory politics. Chetnik leaders convicted under communist rule of
collaboration with the Nazis In World War II, many governments, organizations and individuals collaborated with the Axis powers, "out of conviction, desperation, or under coercion." Nationalists sometimes welcomed German or Italian troops, believing they brought liberatio ...
have been rehabilitated by Serbian courts, and television programmes have contributed to spreading a positive image of the movement, "distorting the real picture of what happened during WWII".


Serbian war crimes in the Yugoslav wars

There have been a number of far-right and nationalist authors and political activists who have publicly disagreed with mainstream views of
Serbian war crimes in the Yugoslav wars Serbia was involved in the Yugoslav Wars, which took place between 1991 and 1999—the war in Slovenia, the war in Croatia, the war in Bosnia and in Kosovo. From 1991 to 1997, Slobodan Milošević was the President of Serbia. Serbia was part of ...
of 1991–1999. Some high-ranked Serbian officials and political leaders who categorically claimed that no
genocide against Bosnian Muslims The Bosnian genocide ( bs, bosanski genocid) refers to either the Srebrenica massacre or the wider crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing campaign throughout areas controlled by the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) during the Bosnian War ...
took place at all, include former president of Serbia Tomislav Nikolić, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, Serbian Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin and Serbian far-right leader Vojislav Šešelj. Among the points of contention are whether the victims of massacres such as the
Račak massacre The Račak massacre ( sq, Masakra e Reçakut) or Račak operation ( sr, Акција Рачак/Akcija Račak) was the massacre of 45 Kosovo Albanians that took place in the village of Račak ( sq, Reçak) in central Kosovo in January 1999. The ...
and Srebrenica massacre were unarmed civilians or armed resistance fighters, whether death and rape tolls were inflated, and whether prison camps such as
Sremska Mitrovica camp Sremska Mitrovica Prison (Serbian: Казнено-поправни завод у Сремској Митровици / ''Kazneno-popravni zavod u Sremskoj Mitrovici'') is the biggest prison in Serbia, consisting of two facilities. It is situated in ...
were sites of mass war crimes. These authors are called "revisionists" by scholars and organizations, such as
ICTY The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to try their perpetrators. The tribunal ...
. The ''
Report about Case Srebrenica ''Report about Case Srebrenica (the first part)'' was a controversial official report on the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was prepared by Darko Trifunović and published by the Republika Srpska Government Bur ...
'' by
Darko Trifunovic ''Report about Case Srebrenica (the first part)'' was a controversial official report on the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was prepared by Darko Trifunović and published by the Republika Srpska Government Bur ...
, commissioned by the government of the Republika Srpska,Gordana Katana (a correspondent with Voice of America in Banja Luka)
REGIONAL REPORT: Bosnian Serbs Play Down Srebrenica
website of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting. Retrieved 25 October 2009
was described by the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to try their perpetrators. The tribunal ...
as "one of the worst examples of revisionism in relation to the mass executions of Bosnian Muslims committed in Srebrenica in July 1995". Outrage and condemnation by a wide variety of Balkan and international figures eventually forced the Republika Srpska to disown the report. In 2017 legislation that banned the teaching of the Srebrenica genocide and Sarajevo siege in schools was introduced in Republika Srpska, initiated by President Milorad Dodik and his SNSD party, who stated that it was "impossible to use here the textbooks … which say the Serbs have committed genocide and kept Sarajevo under siege. This is not correct and this will not be taught here". In 2019 Republika Srpska authorities appointed Israeli historian Gideon Greif – who has worked at Yad Vashem for more than three decades - to head its own revisionist commission to "determine the truth" about Srebrenica.


Turkey and the Armenian genocide

Turkish laws such as
Article 301 Article 301 is an article of the Turkish Penal Code making it illegal to insult Turkey, the Turkish nation, Turkish government institutions, or Turkish national heroes such as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It took effect on June 1, 2005, and was introdu ...
, that state "a person who publicly insults
Turkishness Kemalism ( tr, Kemalizm, also archaically ''Kamâlizm''), also known as Atatürkism ( tr, Atatürkçülük, Atatürkçü düşünce), or The Six Arrows ( tr, Altı Ok), is the founding official ideology of the Turkey, Republic of Turkey.Eric J. ...
, or the Republic or heTurkish Grand National Assembly of Turkey, shall be punishable by imprisonment", were used to criminally charge the writer Orhan Pamuk with disrespecting Turkey, for saying that "Thirty thousand Kurds, and a million Armenians, were killed in these lands, and nobody, but me, dares to talk about it". The controversy occurred as Turkey was first vying for membership in the European Union (EU) where the suppression of dissenters is looked down upon.Madeleine Brand speaks with Hugh Pope
Charges Against Turkish Writer Pamuk Dropped
' NPR 25 January 2005.
Article 301 originally was part of penal-law reforms meant to modernize Turkey to European Union standards, as part of negotiating Turkey's accession to the EU. In 2006, the charges were dropped due to pressure from the European Union and United States on the Turkish government. On 7 February 2006, five journalists were tried for insulting the judicial institutions of the State, and for aiming to prejudice a court case (per Article 288 of the Turkish penal code). The reporters were on trial for criticizing the court-ordered closing of a conference in Istanbul regarding the Armenian genocide during the time of the Ottoman Empire. The conference continued elsewhere, transferring locations from a state to a private university. The trial continued until 11 April 2006, when four of the reporters were acquitted. The case against the fifth journalist,
Murat Belge Murat Belge (born March 16, 1943) is a Turkish academic, translator, literary critic, columnist, civil rights activist, and occasional tour guide. Career Belge was a member of the organizing committee for a two-day academic conference that st ...
, proceeded until 8 June 2006, when he was also acquitted. The purpose of the conference was to critically analyse the official Turkish view of the Armenian genocide in 1915; a taboo subject in Turkey. The trial proved to be a test case between Turkey and the European Union; the EU insisted that Turkey should allow increased freedom of expression rights, as a condition to membership.


Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran uses historical negationism against
religious minorities A minority religion is a religion held by a minority of the population of a country, state, or region. Minority religions may be subject to stigma or discrimination. An example of a stigma is using the term cult with its extremely negative co ...
in order to maintain legitimacy and relevancy of the regime. One example is the regime's approach to Bahai community. In 2008, the erroneous and misleading biography of Bab was presented to all primary school children. In his official 2013 Nowruz address, Supreme Leader of Iran Grand Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei ( fa, سید علی حسینی خامنه‌ای, ; born 19 April 1939) is a Twelver Shia ''marja and the second and current Supreme Leader of Iran, in office since 1989. He was previously the third president o ...
questioned the veracity of the Holocaust, remarking that "The Holocaust is an event whose reality is uncertain and if it has happened, it's uncertain how it has happened." This was consistent with Khamenei's previous comments regarding the Holocaust.


Soviet history

During the existence of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1917–1991) and the Soviet Union (1922–1991), the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union "Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspaper ...
(CPSU) attempted to ideologically and politically control the writing of both academic and popular history. These attempts were most successful in the 1934–1952 period. According to
Klaus Mehnert Klaus Mehnert (October 10, 1906, Moscow, Russia – January 2, 1984, Freudenstadt, Germany) was a German writer, journalist and academic. He was a correspondent in the Soviet Union; a professor in the United States; a publisher of a German-funded ...
, the Soviets attempt to control academic historiography (the writing of history by academic historians) to promote ideological and ethno-racial
imperialism Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...
by Russians. During the 1928–1956 period, modern and contemporary history was generally composed according to the wishes of the CPSU, not the requirements of accepted historiographic method. During and after the rule of Nikita Khrushchev (1956–1964), Soviet historiographic practice was more complicated. Although not entirely corrupted, Soviet historiography was characterized by complex competition between
Stalinist Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...
and anti-Stalinist Marxist historians. To avoid the professional hazard of politicized history, some historians chose pre-modern, medieval history or classical history, where ideological demands were relatively relaxed and conversation with other historians in the field could be fostered; despite the potential danger of proscribed ideology corrupting historians' work, not all of Soviet historiography was corrupt. Control over party history and the legal status of individual ex-party members played a large role in dictating the ideological diversity and thus the faction in power within the CPSU. The official '' History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)'' was revised to delete references to leaders purged from the party, especially during the rule of Joseph Stalin (1922–1953).An example of changing visual history is the party's motivated practice of altering photographs. In the historiography of the Cold War, a controversy over negationist historical revisionism exists, where numerous revisionist scholars in the West have been accused of whitewashing the crimes of Stalinism, overlooking the Katyn massacre in Poland, disregarding the validity of the Venona Project messages with regards to
Soviet espionage in the United States As early as the 1920s, the Soviet Union, through its GRU, OGPU, NKVD, and KGB intelligence agencies, used Russian and foreign-born nationals ( resident spies), as well as Communists of American origin, to perform espionage activities in the Unite ...
, as well as the denial of the
Holodomor The Holodomor ( uk, Голодомо́р, Holodomor, ; derived from uk, морити голодом, lit=to kill by starvation, translit=moryty holodom, label=none), also known as the Terror-Famine or the Great Famine, was a man-made famin ...
of 1932–1933.


Azerbaijan


In relation to Armenia

Many scholars, among them
Victor Schnirelmann Victor Alexandrovich Schnirelmann (russian: Виктор Александрович Шнирельман, b. 18 May 1949, Moscow; frequently spelled Shnirelman in his English-language publications) is a Russian historian, ethnologist and a member o ...
,
Victor Schnirelmann Victor Alexandrovich Schnirelmann (russian: Виктор Александрович Шнирельман, b. 18 May 1949, Moscow; frequently spelled Shnirelman in his English-language publications) is a Russian historian, ethnologist and a member o ...
: The Value of the Past: Myths, Identity and Politics in Transcaucasia. Senri Ethnological Studies. pp. 160, 196–97: "The republication of classical and medieval sources with omissions, with the replacement of the term "Armenian state" by "Albanian state" and with other distortions of the original manuscripts was another way to play down the Armenian role in early and medieval Transcaucasia. ... The Azeri scholars did all of this by order of the Soviet and Party authorities of Azerbaijan, rather than through free will."
Victor Schnirelmann Victor Alexandrovich Schnirelmann (russian: Виктор Александрович Шнирельман, b. 18 May 1949, Moscow; frequently spelled Shnirelman in his English-language publications) is a Russian historian, ethnologist and a member o ...

Why to attribute the dominant views in Azerbaijan to the "world science"?
// REGNUM, 12.02.2013
Translation
Willem Floor Willem Marius Floor (born 1942) is a Dutch historian, writer, and Iranologist. He was born in 1942 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. After finishing high school, he attended the University of Utrecht where he studied economics, non-Western sociology, an ...
,Willem M. Floor, Hasan Javadi. "Abbas-Kuli-aga Bakikhanov. The Heavenly Rose-Garden: A History of Shirvan & Daghestan". Mage Publishers, 2008. p. xvi: "This is in particular disturbing because he suppresses, for example, the mention of territory inhabited by Armenians, thus not only falsifying history, but also not respecting Bakikhanov's dictum that a historian should write without prejudice, whether religious, ethnic, political or otherwise" Robert Hewsen,Robert Hewsen. ''Armenia: A Historical Atlas.'' University of Chicago Press, 2001. p. 291: "Scholars should be on guard when using Soviet and post-Soviet Azeri editions of Azeri, Persian, and even Russian and Western European sources printed in Baku. These have been edited to remove references to Armenians and have been distributed in large numbers in recent years. When utilizing such sources, the researchers should seek out pre-Soviet editions wherever possible." George Bournoutian George Bournoutian. A brief history of the Aghuankʻ region. Mazda Publishers, 2009. pp. 8–14: "Therefore, in order to substantiate their political claims, Bunyatov and his fellow academics chose to set aside all scholarly integrity and print large numbers of re-edited versions of these not easily accessible primary sources on Karabagh, while deleting or altering references to the Armenians" George Bournoutian. Rewriting History: Recent Azeri Alterations of Primary Sources Dealing with Karabakh] // Research note from Volume 6 of the "Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies" (1992,1993) and others state that in Soviet and post-Soviet Azerbaijan since the 1960s there is a practice of revising primary sources on the South Caucasus in which any mention about Armenians is removed. In the revised texts, ''Armenian'' is either simply removed or is replaced by ''Albanian''; there are many other examples of such falsifications, all of which have the purpose of creating an impression that historically Armenians were not present in this territory. Willem M. Floor and Hasan Javadi in the English edition of "The Heavenly Rose-Garden: A History of Shirvan & Daghestan" by Abbasgulu Bakikhanov specifically point out to the instances of distortions and falsifications made by Ziya Bunyadov in his Russian translation of this book. According to Bournoutian and Hewsen these distortions are widespread in these works; they thus advise the readers in general to avoid the books produced in Azerbaijan in Soviet and post-Soviet times if these books do not contain the facsimile copy of original sources. Shnirelman thinks that this practice is being realized in Azerbaijan according to state order.
Philip L. Kohl Philip L. Kohl (September 20, 1946 – May 11, 2022)Philip L. Kohl ...
brings an example of a theory advanced by Azerbaijani archeologist Akhundov about Albanian origin of Khachkars as an example of patently false cultural origin myths.Philip L. Kohl, Clare P. Fawcett. Nationalism, politics, and the practice of archaeology. Cambridge University Press, 1995. p. 154: "Thus, minimally, two points must be made. Patently false cultural origin myths are not always harmless. The political context within which such myths are articulated is critical, and this context continually changes: given the events of the last nine years, assertion that today's Azerbaijan was the original homeland of Turkic-speaking peoples is charged with political significance" The Armenian cemetery in Julfa, a cemetery near the town of Julfa, in the Nakhchivan exclave of Azerbaijan originally housed around 10,000 funerary monuments. The tombstones consisted mainly of thousands of ''
khachkar A ''khachkar'', also known as a ''khatchkar'' or Armenian cross-stone ( hy, խաչքար, , խաչ xačʿ "cross" + քար kʿar "stone") is a carved, memorial stele bearing a cross, and often with additional motifs such as rosettes, in ...
s'', uniquely decorated cross-stones characteristic of medieval Christian Armenian art. The cemetery was still standing in the late 1990s, when the government of Azerbaijan began a systematic campaign to destroy the monuments. After studying and comparing satellite photos of Julfa taken in 2003 and 2009, the
American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
came to the conclusion in December 2010 that the cemetery was demolished and leveled. After the director of the Hermitage Museum
Mikhail Piotrovsky Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky (russian: Михаил Борисович Пиотровский) is the Director of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Life and career He was born in Yerevan in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republi ...
expressed his protest about the destruction of Armenian khachkars in Julfa, he was accused by Azerbaijanis of supporting the "total falsification of the history and culture of Azerbaijan".Алиев В. "Кампанией вокруг хачкаров армяне хотят отвлечь внимание мира от агрессии Армении против Азербайджана"/В. Алиев // Наш век, 2006.-5-11 мая, N N18.-С.6 Several appeals were filed by both Armenian and international organizations, condemning the Azerbaijani government and calling on it to desist from such activity. In 2006, Azerbaijan barred European Parliament members from investigating the claims, charging them with a "biased and hysterical approach" to the issue and stating that it would only accept a delegation if it visited Armenian-occupied territory as well. In the spring of 2006, a journalist from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting who visited the area reported that no visible traces of the cemetery remained. In the same year, photographs taken from Iran showed that the cemetery site had been turned into a military
shooting range A shooting range, firing range, gun range or shooting ground is a specialized facility, sports venue, venue or playing field, field designed specifically for firearm usage qualifications, training, practice or shooting sport, competitions. So ...
. The destruction of the cemetery has been widely described by Armenian sources, and some non-Armenian sources, as an act of " cultural genocide." In Azerbaijan, the Armenian genocide is officially denied and is considered a hoax. According to the state ideology of Azerbaijan, a genocide of Azerbaijanis, carried out by Armenians and Russians, took place starting from 1813. Mahmudov has claimed that Armenians first appeared in Karabakh in 1828.Махмудов Я.М. Самый опасный вымысел в истории: (Ложь о "Великой Армении" – "идеология" террора, геноцида и захвата чужих земель) // Бакинский рабочий. – 2009:27 января. – N 16. – С. 2–3.
copy
Azerbaijani academics and politicians have claimed that foreign historians falsify the history of Azerbaijan and criticism was directed towards a Russian documentary about the regions of Karabakh and Nakhchivan and the historical Armenian presence in these areas.Day.Az. 02 Мая 2007 8:13br>Как реагировать на затягивание Россией ответов на ноты протеста?
Керимов Р. Молчание Кремля: РФ рассматривает ноту протеста Азербайджана, в МИД АР ждут извинений и исправлений ошибок, а НАНА готова помочь соседу документами/Р. Керимов // Эхо, 2007.-3 мая, N N 77.-С.1.3 According to the institute director of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences Yagub Mahmudov, prior to 1918 "there was never an Armenian state in the South Caucasus". According to Mahmudov,
Ilham Aliyev Ilham Heydar oghlu Aliyev ( az, İlham Heydər oğlu Əliyev, ; born 24 December 1961) is the fourth president of Azerbaijan, serving in the post since 31 October 2003. The son and second child of the former Azerbaijani leader Heydar Aliyev, ...
's statement in which he said that "Irevan is our zerbaijan'shistoric land, and we, Azerbaijanis must return to these historic lands", was based "historical facts" and "historical reality". Mahmudov also stated that the claim that Armenian's are the most ancient people in the region is based on propaganda, and said that Armenians are non-natives of the region, having only arrived in the area after Russian victories over Iran and the Ottoman Empire in the first half of the 19th century. The institute director also said: "The Azerbaijani soldier should know that the land under the feet of provocative Armenians is Azerbaijani land. The enemy can never defeat Azerbaijanis on Azerbaijani soil. Those who rule the Armenian state today must fundamentally change their political course. The Armenians cannot defeat us by sitting in our historic city of Irevan."


In relation to Iran

Historic falsifications in Azerbaijan, in relation to Iran and its history, are "backed by state and state backed non-governmental organizational bodies", ranging "from elementary school all the way to the highest level of universities". As a result of the two Russo-Iranian Wars of the 19th century, the border between what is present-day Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan was formed. Although there had not been a historical
Azerbaijani Azerbaijani may refer to: * Something of, or related to Azerbaijan * Azerbaijanis * Azerbaijani language See also * Azerbaijan (disambiguation) * Azeri (disambiguation) * Azerbaijani cuisine * Culture of Azerbaijan The culture of Azerbaijan ...
state to speak of in history, the demarcation, set at the Aras river, left significant numbers of what were later coined "Azerbaijanis" to the north of the Aras river. During the existence of the
Azerbaijan SSR Azerbaijan ( az, Азәрбајҹан, Azərbaycan, italics=no), officially the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (Azerbaijan SSR; az, Азәрбајҹан Совет Сосиалист Республикасы, Azərbaycan Sovet Sosialist R ...
, as a result of Soviet-era historical revionism and myth-building, the notion of a "northern" and "
southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...
" Azerbaijan was formulated and spread throughout the Soviet Union. During the Soviet nation building campaign, any event, both past and present, that had ever occurred in what is the present-day Azerbaijan Republic and Iranian Azerbaijan were rebranded as phenomenons of "Azerbaijani culture". Any Iranian ruler or poet that had lived in the area was assigned to the newly rebranded identity of the Transcaucasian Turkophones, in other words "Azerbaijanis". According to Michael P. Croissant: "It was charged that the "two Azerbaijans", once united, were separated artificially by a conspiracy between imperial Russia and Iran". This notion based on illegitimate historic revisionism suited Soviet political purposes well (based on "anti-imperialism"), and became the basis for irredentism among
Azerbaijani nationalists Azerbaijani nationalism ( az, Azərbaycan milliyətçiliyi), also referred to as Azerbaijanism ( az, Azərbaycançılıq, link=no), started out as a cultural movement among Azerbaijani intellectuals within the Russian Empire during the second half ...
in the last years of the Soviet Union, shortly prior to the establishment of the Azerbaijan Republic in 1991. In Azerbaijan, periods and aspects of Iranian history are usually claimed as being an "Azerbaijani" product in a distortion of history, and historic Iranian figures, such as the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi are called "Azerbaijanis", contrary to universally acknowledged fact. In the Azerbaijan SSR, forgeries such as an alleged "Turkish '' divan''" and falsified verses were published in order to "Turkify" Nizami Ganjavi. Although this type of irredentism was initially the result of the nation building policy of the Soviets, it became an instrument for "biased, pseudo-academic approaches and political speculations" in the nationalistic aspirations of the young Azerbaijan Republic. In the modern Azerbaijan Republic, historiography is written with the aim of retroactively Turkifying many of the peoples and kingdoms that existed prior to the arrival of Turks in the region, including the Iranian Medes. According to professor of history George Bournoutian: Bournoutian adds:


North Korea and the Korean War

Since the start of the Korean War (1950–1953), the government of North Korea has consistently denied that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) launched the attack with which it began the war for the Communist unification of Korea. The historiography of the DPRK maintains that the war was provoked by South Korea, at the instigation of the United States: "On June 17, Juche 39 950the then U.S. President arry S.Truman sent ohn FosterDulles as his special envoy to South Korea to examine the anti-North war scenario and give an order to start the attack. On June 18, Dulles inspected the 38th parallel and the war preparations of the ' ROK Army' units. That day he told
Syngman Rhee Syngman Rhee (, ; 26 March 1875 – 19 July 1965) was a South Korean politician who served as the first president of South Korea from 1948 to 1960. Rhee was also the first and last president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Ko ...
to start the attack on North Korea with the counter-propaganda that North Korea first 'invaded' the south." Further North Korean pronouncements included the claim that the U.S. needed the peninsula of Korea as "a bridgehead, for invading the Asian continent, and as a strategic base, from which to fight against national-liberation movements and socialism, and, ultimately, to attain world supremacy." Likewise, the DPRK denied the war crimes committed by the Korean People's Army in the course of the war; nonetheless, in the 1951–1952 period, the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) privately admitted to the "excesses" of their earlier campaign against North Korean citizens who had collaborated with the enemy – either actually or allegedly – during the US–South Korean occupation of North Korea. Later, the WPK blamed every wartime atrocity upon the
U.S. Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...
, e.g. the Sinchon Massacre (17 October – 7 December 1950) occurred during the retreat of the DPRK government from Hwanghae Province, in the south-west of North Korea. The campaign against " collaborators" was attributed to political and ideological manipulations by the U.S.; the high-rank leader Pak Chang-ok said that the American enemy had "started to use a new method, namely, it donned a
leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
garb, which considerably influenced the inexperienced cadres of the Party and government organs." Kathryn Weathersby's ''Soviet Aims in Korea and the Origins of the Korean War, 1945–1950: New Evidence from Russian Archives'' (1993) confirmed that the Korean War was launched by order of Kim Il-sung (1912–1994); and also refuted the DPRK's allegations of biological warfare in the Korean War. The Korean Central News Agency dismissed the historical record of Soviet documents as "sheer forgery".


Holocaust denial

Holocaust deniers usually reject the term ''Holocaust denier'' as an inaccurate description of their historical point of view, instead preferring the term ''Holocaust revisionist''; nonetheless,
scholars A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher ...
prefer "Holocaust denier" to differentiate deniers from legitimate
historical revisionists In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account. It usually involves challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) views held by professional scholars about a historical event or times ...
, whose goal is to accurately analyse historical evidence with established methods.To clarify the terminology of ''denial'' vs. ''revisionism'', see: * "This is the phenomenon of what has come to be known as 'revisionism', 'negationism', or 'Holocaust denial,' whose main characteristic is either an outright rejection of the very veracity of the Nazi genocide of the Jews, or at least a concerted attempt to minimize both its scale and importance ... It is just as crucial, however, to distinguish between the wholly objectionable politics of denial and the fully legitimate scholarly revision of previously accepted conventional interpretations of any historical event, including the Holocaust." Bartov, Omer. ''The Holocaust: Origins, Implementation and Aftermath,'' Routledge, pp. 11–12. Bartov is John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History at the Watson Institute, and is regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on genocide
"Omer Bartov"
, The Watson Institute for International Studies). * "The two leading critical exposés of Holocaust denial in the United States were written by historians Deborah Lipstadt (1993) and Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman (2000). These scholars make a distinction between historical revisionism and denial. Revisionism, in their view, entails a refinement of existing knowledge about a historical event, not a denial of the event itself, that comes through the examination of new empirical evidence or a reexamination or reinterpretation of existing evidence. Legitimate historical revisionism acknowledges a "certain body of irrefutable evidence" or a "convergence of evidence" that suggest that an event – like the black plague, American slavery, or the Holocaust – did in fact occur (Lipstadt 1993:21; Shermer & Grobman 200:34). Denial, on the other hand, rejects the entire foundation of historical evidence ..." Ronald J. Berger. ''Fathoming the Holocaust: A Social Problems Approach'', Aldine Transaction, 2002, , p. 154. * "At this time, in the mid-1970s, the specter of Holocaust Denial (masked as "revisionism") had begun to raise its head in Australia ..." Bartrop, Paul R. "A Little More Understanding: The Experience of a Holocaust Educator in Australia" in Samuel Totten, Steven Leonard Jacobs, Paul R Bartrop. ''Teaching about the Holocaust'', Praeger/Greenwood, 2004, p. xix. * " Pierre Vidal-Naquet urges that denial of the Holocaust should not be called 'revisionism' because 'to deny history is not to revise it'. ''Les Assassins de la Memoire. Un Eichmann de papier et autres essays sur le revisionisme'' (The Assassins of Memory – A Paper-Eichmann and Other Essays on Revisionism) 15 (1987)." Cited in Roth, Stephen J. "Denial of the Holocaust as an Issue of Law" in the ''Israel Yearbook on Human Rights'', Volume 23, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1993, , p. 215. * "This essay describes, from a methodological perspective, some of the inherent flaws in the "revisionist" approach to the history of the Holocaust. It is not intended as a polemic, nor does it attempt to ascribe motives. Rather, it seeks to explain the fundamental error in the "revisionist" approach, as well as why that approach of necessity leaves no other choice. It concludes that "revisionism" is a misnomer because the facts do not accord with the position it puts forward and, more importantly, its methodology reverses the appropriate approach to historical investigation ..."Revisionism" is obliged to deviate from the standard methodology of historical pursuit because it seeks to mold facts to fit a preconceived result, it denies events that have been objectively and empirically proved to have occurred, and because it works backward from the conclusion to the facts, thus necessitating the distortion and manipulation of those facts where they differ from the preordained conclusion (which they almost always do). In short, "revisionism" denies something that demonstrably happened, through methodological dishonesty." McFee, Gordon
"Why 'Revisionism' Isn't"
The Holocaust History Project The Holocaust History Project (THHP) is an inactive non-profit corporation based in San Antonio, Texas. Its archived website offers a comprehensive selection of documents, recordings, photographs, and essays regarding the Holocaust, Holocaust den ...
, 15 May 1999. Retrieved 15 August 2016. * "Crucial to understanding and combating Holocaust denial is a clear distinction between denial and revisionism. One of the more insidious and dangerous aspects of contemporary Holocaust denial, a la Arthur Butz, Bradley Smith and Greg Raven, is the fact that they attempt to present their work as reputable scholarship under the guise of 'historical revisionism.' The term 'revisionist' permeates their publications as descriptive of their motives, orientation and methodology. In fact, Holocaust denial is in no sense 'revisionism,' it is denial ... Contemporary Holocaust deniers are not revisionists – not even neo-revisionists. They are ''Deniers''. Their motivations stem from their neo-nazi political goals and their rampant antisemitism." Austin, Ben S
"Deniers in Revisionists Clothing"
, The Holocaust\Shoah Page, Middle Tennessee State University. Retrieved 29 March 2007. * "Holocaust denial can be a particularly insidious form of antisemitism precisely because it often tries to disguise itself as something quite different: as genuine scholarly debate (in the pages, for example, of the innocuous-sounding Journal for Historical Review). Holocaust deniers often refer to themselves as 'revisionists', in an attempt to claim legitimacy for their activities. There are, of course, a great many scholars engaged in historical debates about the Holocaust whose work should not be confused with the output of the Holocaust deniers. Debate continues about such subjects as, for example, the extent and nature of ordinary Germans' involvement in and knowledge of the policy of genocide, and the timing of orders given for the extermination of the Jews. However, the valid endeavour of historical revisionism, which involves the re-interpretation of historical knowledge in the light of newly emerging evidence, is a very different task from that of claiming that the essential facts of the Holocaust, and the evidence for those facts, are fabrications.
The nature of Holocaust denial: What is Holocaust denial?
, JPR report No. 3, 2000. Retrieved 16 May 2007.
Historian Alan Berger reports that Holocaust deniers argue in support of a preconceived theory – that the Holocaust either did not occur or was mostly a hoax – by ignoring extensive historical evidence to the contrary. When the author David IrvingFurther information of how Irving was discredited as a historian: * "In 1969, after David Irving's support for Rolf Hochhuth, the German playwright who accused Winston Churchill of murdering the Polish wartime leader General Sikorski, The Daily Telegraph issued a memo to all its correspondents. 'It is incorrect,' it said, 'to describe David Irving as a historian. In future we should describe him as an author.'" Ingram, Richard
Irving was the author of his own downfall
'' The Independent'', 25 February 2006. * "It may seem an absurd semantic dispute to deny the appellation of 'historian' to someone who has written two dozen books or more about historical subjects. But if we mean by historian someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past, and to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, then Irving is not a historian. Those in the know, indeed, are accustomed to avoid the term altogether when referring to him and use some circumlocution such as 'historical writer' instead. Irving is essentially an ideologue who uses history for his own political purposes; he is not primarily concerned with discovering and interpreting what happened in the past, he is concerned merely to give a selective and tendentious account of it in order to further his own ideological ends in the present. The true historian's primary concern, however, is with the past. That is why, in the end, Irving is not a historian." Irving vs. (1) Lipstadt and (2) Penguin Books
Expert Witness Report
by
Richard J. Evans Sir Richard John Evans (born 29 September 1947) is a British historian of 19th- and 20th-century Europe with a focus on Germany. He is the author of eighteen books, including his three-volume ''The Third Reich Trilogy'' (2003–2008). Evans was ...
FBA, Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, 2000, Chapter 6. * "State prosecutor Michael Klackl said: 'He's not a historian, he's a falsifier of history.'" Traynor, Ian
Irving jailed for denying Holocaust
'' The Guardian'', 21 February 2006. * "One of Britain's most prominent speakers on Muslim issues is today exposed as a supporter of David Irving. ... Bukhari contacted the discredited historian, sentenced this year to three years in an Austrian prison for Holocaust denial, after reading his website." Doward, Jamie
"Muslim leader sent funds to Irving"
'' The Guardian'', 19 November 2006. * "David Irving, the discredited historian and Nazi apologist, was last night starting a three-year prison sentence in Vienna for denying the Holocaust and the gas chambers of Auschwitz." Traynor, Ian
"Irving jailed for denying Holocaust"
'' The Guardian'', 21 February 2006. * "Conclusion on meaning 2.15 (vi): that Irving is discredited as a historian." David Irving v. Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt/II. * "DAVID Irving, the discredited revisionist historian and most outspoken British Holocaust denier, has added further fuel to the controversy over his early release from an Austrian jail by recanting his court statement of regret over his views." Crichton, Torcuil. "Holocaust denier reneges on regret", ''
The Sunday Herald The ''Sunday Herald'' was a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published between 7 February 1999 and 2 September 2018. Originally a broadsheet, it was published in compact format from 20 November 2005. The paper was known for having combined a centre- ...
'', 24 December 2006. * "Discredited British author David Irving spoke in front of some 250 people at a small theatre on Szabadság tér last Monday." Hodgson, Robert
"Holocaust denier David Irving draws a friendly crowd in Budapest"
''The Budapest Times'', 19 March 2007. * "An account of the 2000–2001 libel trial in the high court of the now discredited historian David Irving, which formed the backdrop for his recent conviction in Vienna for denying the Holocaust.
Program Details – David Irving: The London Trial 2006-02-26 17:00:00
'' BBC Radio 4.'' * "Yet Irving, a discredited right-wing historian, was described by a High Court judge after a long libel trial as a racist anti-semite who denied the Holocaust." Edwards, Rob. "Anti-green activist in links with Nazi writer; Revealed: campaigner", ''
The Sunday Herald The ''Sunday Herald'' was a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published between 7 February 1999 and 2 September 2018. Originally a broadsheet, it was published in compact format from 20 November 2005. The paper was known for having combined a centre- ...
'', 5 May 2002. * "'The sentence against Irving confirms that he and his views are discredited, but as a general rule I don't think that this is the way this should be dealt with,' said Antony Lerman, director of the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research. 'It is better to combat denial by education and using good speech to drive out bad speech.'" Gruber, Ruth Ellen
"Jail sentence for Holocaust denier spurs debate on free speech"
'' J. The Jewish News of Northern California'', 24 February 2006. * "Deborah Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies and director of The Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University. She is the author of two books about the Holocaust. Her book ''Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory'' led to the 2000 court case in which she defeated and discredited Holocaust denier David Irving.
Understanding Auschwitz Today
Task of Justice & Danger of Holocaust Deniers, ''
Public Broadcasting Service The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...
''. * "After the discredited British historian David Irving was sentenced to a three-year jail term in Austria as a penalty for denying the Holocaust, the liberal conscience of western Europe has squirmed and agonised." Glover, Gillian
"Irving gets just what he wanted – his name in the headlines"
'' The Scotsman'', 23 February 2006. * "... is a disciple of discredited historian and Holocaust denier David Irving." Horowitz, David. ''The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America'', Regnery Publishing, 2006, , p. 175. * "If the case for competence applies to those who lack specialist knowledge, it applies even further to those who have been discredited as incompetent. For example, why ought we include David Irving in a debate aiming to establish the truth about the Holocaust, after a court has found that he manipulates and misinterprets history?" Long, Graham. ''Relativism and the Foundations of Liberalism'', Imprint Academic, 2004, , p. 80. * "Ironically, Julius is also a celebrated solicitor famous for his defence of Schuchard's colleague, Deborah Lipstadt, against the suit for of libel brought by the discredited historian David Irving brought when Lipstadt accused him of denying the Holocaust.
"T S Eliot's anti-Semitism hotly debated as scholars argue over new evidence"
,
University of York , mottoeng = On the threshold of wisdom , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £8.0 million , budget = £403.6 million , chancellor = Heather Melville , vice_chancellor = Charlie Jeffery , students ...
, Communications Office, 5 February 2003. * "Irving, a discredited historian, has insisted that Jews at Auschwitz were not gassed." "Irving vows to continue denial", Breaking News, ''
Jewish Telegraphic Agency The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is an international news agency and wire service, founded in 1917, serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world as well as non-Jewish press, with about 70 syndication clients listed on its web ...
'', 7 February 2007. * "David Irving, the discredited historian and Nazi apologist, was on Monday night starting a three-year prison sentence in Vienna for denying the Holocaust and the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
"Historian jailed for denying Holocaust"
, '' Mail & Guardian'', 21 February 2006. * "Irving, a discredited historian, has insisted that Jews at Auschwitz were not gassed.
"Irving Vows To Continue Denial"
, '' The Jewish Week'', 29 December 2006. * "The two best-known present-day Holocaust deniers are the discredited historian David Irving, jailed last year in Austria for the offence, and the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who wants Israel wiped off the map." Wills, Clair. " Ben Kiely and the 'Holocaust denial'", ''
Irish Independent The ''Irish Independent'' is an Irish daily newspaper and online publication which is owned by Independent News & Media (INM), a subsidiary of Mediahuis. The newspaper version often includes glossy magazines. Traditionally a broadsheet new ...
'', 10 March 2007. * " rvingclaimed that Lipstadt's book accuses him of falsifying historical facts to support his theory that the Holocaust never happened. This of course discredited his reputation as a historian. ... On 11 April, High Court judge Charles Gray ruled against Irving, concluding that he qualified as a Holocaust denier and anti-Semite, and that as such he distorted history to defend his hero, Adolf Hitler." Wyden, Peter. ''The Hitler Virus: the Insidious Legacy of Adolf Hitler'', Arcade Publishing, 2001, , p. 164. * "Now that holocaust denier David Irving has been discredited, what is the future of history?" Kustow, Michael
"History after Irving"
, '' Red Pepper'', June 2000. * "In Britain, which does not have a Holocaust denial law, Irving had already been thoroughly discredited when he unsuccessfully sued historian Deborah Lipstadt in 1998 for describing him as a Holocaust denier." Callamard, Agnès. "Debate: can we say what we want?", ''
Le Monde diplomatique ''Le Monde diplomatique'' (meaning "The Diplomatic World" in French) is a French monthly newspaper offering analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs. The publication is owned by Le Monde diplomatique SA, a subsidiary com ...
'', April 2007. * "Holocaust denier and discredited British historian David Irving, for example, asserts. ... that Auschwitz gas chambers were constructed after World War II.
"Hate-Group Web Sites Target Children, Teens"
''Psychiatric News'', American Psychiatric Association, 2 February 2001. * "Holocaust denier: An Austrian court hears discredited British historian David Irving's appeal against his jail sentence for denying the Nazi genocide of the Jews."
"The world this week"
BBC News, 20 December 2006. * "Discredited British historian David Irving began serving three years in an Austrian prison yesterday for denying the Holocaust, a crime in the country where Hitler was born." Schofield, Matthew
"Controversial Nazi apologist backs down, but still jailed for three years"
'' The Age'', 22 February 2006.
lost his English libel case against Deborah Lipstadt, and her publisher, Penguin Books, and thus was publicly discredited and identified as a Holocaust denier, the trial judge, Justice Charles Gray, concluded that "Irving has, for his own ideological reasons, persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that, for the same reasons, he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favorable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards, and responsibility for, the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-semitic and racist, and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism." On 20 February 2006, Irving was found guilty, and sentenced to three years imprisonment for Holocaust denial, under Austria's 1947 law banning Nazi revivalism and criminalizing the "public denial, belittling or justification of National Socialist crimes". Besides Austria, eleven other countries – including Belgium, France, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, and Switzerland – have criminalized Holocaust denial as punishable with imprisonment.Laws against denying the Holocaust: * Philip Johnston
Britons face extradition (to Germany) for 'thought crime' on net
in '' The Daily Telegraph'', 18 February 2003 * Brendan O'Neil
"Irving? Let the guy go home"
rom Austria Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * R ...
BBC 4 January 2006 * Malte Herwig
The Swastika Wielding Provocateur
' in ''
Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'' 16 January 2006 *
14 July 1990 Act prohibiting racist, antisemitic and xenophobic acts – ''loi Gayssot''
* *

by the
Stephen Roth Institute The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism is a research institute at Tel Aviv University in Israel. It is a resource for information, provides a forum for academic discussion, and fosters research on issues ...
for the Study of Antisemitism and Racism * Philip Johnston,
Blair's pledge on Holocaust denial law abandoned
in '' The Daily Telegraph'', 21 January 2000 and Lithuania.


1989 Tiananmen Square protests

The
1989 Tiananmen Square protests The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...
were a series of pro-democracy demonstrations against the Chinese Communist Party that were put down violently on 4 June 1989, by the Chinese government via the
People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, ...
, resulting in estimated casualties of over 10,000 deaths and 40,000 injured, obtained via later declassified documents.


North Macedonia

According to
Eugene N. Borza Eugene N. Borza (3 March 1935 – 5 September 2021) was a professor emeritus of ancient history at Pennsylvania State University, where he taught from 1964 until 1995. Academic career Born in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, Borza came from a family of immi ...
, the Macedonians are in search of their past to legitimize their unsure present, in the disorder of the Balkan politics.
Ivaylo Dichev Ivaylo Ditchev ( bg, Ивайло Дичев) is professor of cultural anthropology at Sofia University, Bulgaria. He has been teaching abroad, mainly in France and the USA. Honorary associate of the Graduate school for East and South-East Europea ...
claims that the Macedonian historiography has the impossible task of filling the huge gaps between the ancient kingdom of Macedon, that collapsed in 2nd century BC, the 10th–11th century state of the Cometopuls, and the Yugoslav Macedonia established in the middle of the 20th century. According to Ulf Brunnbauer, modern Macedonian historiography is highly politicized, because the Macedonian
nation-building Nation-building is constructing or structuring a national identity using the power of the state. Nation-building aims at the unification of the people within the state so that it remains politically stable and viable in the long run. According to ...
process is still in development. The recent nation-building project imposes the idea of a "Macedonian nation" with unbroken continuity from the antiquity ( Ancient Macedonians) to the modern times, which has been criticized by some domestic and foreign scholars for
ahistorical Ahistoricism refers to a lack of concern for history, historical development, or tradition. Charges of ahistoricism are frequently critical, implying that the subject is historically inaccurate or ignorant (for example, an ''ahistorical'' attitud ...
ly projecting modern ethnic distinctions into the past. In this way generations of students were educated in pseudohistory.


In textbooks


Japan

The history textbook controversy centres upon the secondary school history textbook ''Atarashii Rekishi Kyōkasho'' ("New History Textbook") said to minimize the nature of Japanese militarism in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), in annexing Korea in 1910, in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), and in the
Pacific Theater The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
of World War II (1941–45). The conservative Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform commissioned the ''Atarashii Rekishi Kyōkasho'' textbook with the purpose of traditional national and international view of that Japanese historical period. The Ministry of Education vets all history textbooks, especially those containing references to imperialist atrocities due to a special provision in the textbook examination rules to avoid inflaming controversy with neighboring countries; however, the ''Atarashii Rekishi Kyōkasho'' de-emphasizes aggressive Japanese Imperial wartime behaviour and the matter of Chinese and Korean
comfort women Comfort women or comfort girls were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term "comfort women" is a translation of the Japanese '' ia ...
. When it comes to the Nanking massacre, the textbook only refers to it as the Nanking Incident, mentioning there were civilian casualties without delving into specifics, and mentioning it again in relation to the Tokyo tribunal, stating that there are multiple opinions about the topic with controversies continuing to this day (see
Nanking massacre denial Nanjing Massacre denial is the denial of the fact that Imperial Japanese forces murdered hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians in the city of Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese War, an extremely controversial episode in th ...
). In 2007, the Ministry of Education attempted to revise textbooks regarding the
Battle of Okinawa The , codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army (USA) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) forces against the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The initial invasion of ...
, lessening the involvement of the Imperial Japanese Army in Okinawan civilian mass suicides.


Pakistan

Allegations of historical revisionism have been made regarding Pakistani textbooks in that they are laced with
Indophobic Anti-Indian sentiment, also known as Indophobia or anti-Indianism, is a modern term referring to negative feelings and hatred towards the Republic of India, Indian people, and Indian culture. Indophobia is formally defined in the context of an ...
, Hindu-hating and Islamist bias. Pakistan's use of officially published textbooks has been criticized for using schools to more subtly foster religious extremism, whitewashing Muslim conquests on the Indian subcontinent and promoting "expansive pan-Islamic imaginings" that "detect the beginnings of Pakistan in the birth of Islam on the
Arabian peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate ...
". Since 2001, the Pakistani government has stated that curriculum reforms have been underway by the Ministry of Education.


South Korea

12 October 2015, South Korea's government has announced controversial plans to control the history textbooks used in secondary schools despite oppositional concerns of people and academics that the decision is made to glorify the history of those who served the Imperial Japanese government ( Chinilpa). Section and the authoritarian dictatorships in South Korea during 1960s–1980s.The Ministry of Education announced that it would put the secondary-school history textbook under state control; "This was an inevitable choice in order to straighten out historical errors and end the social dispute caused by ideological bias in the textbooks,"
Hwang Woo-yea Hwang Woo-yea ( ko, 황우여, Hanja: 黃祐呂; born 3 August 1947) is a Korean jurist, politician, and former chairman of the Saenuri Party. Hwang represents the electorate centred on Yeonsu District, Incheon in the National Assembly of S ...
, education minister said on 12 October 2015. According to the government's plan, the current history textbooks of South Korea will be replaced by a single textbook written by a panel of government-appointed historians and the new series of publications would be issued under the title ''The Correct Textbook of History'' and are to be issued to the public and private primary and secondary schools in 2017 onwards. The move has sparked fierce criticism from academics who argue that the system can be used to distort the history and glorify the history of those who served the Imperial Japanese government ( Chinilpa) and of the authoritarian dictatorships. Moreover, 466 organizations including
Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union The Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU, ko, 전국교직원노동조합), also known as Jeon(-)gyojo ( ko, 전교조; acronym for ''KTU'' in Korean language) is a labor union of teachers in South Korea. The organization has 77,000 ...
formed History Act Network in solidarity and have staged protests: "The government's decision allows the state too much control and power and, therefore, it is against political neutrality that is certainly the fundamental principle of education." Many South Korean historians condemned Kyohaksa for their text glorifying those who served the Imperial Japanese government (Chinilpa) and the authoritarian dictatorship with a far-right political perspective. On the other hand, New Right supporters welcomed the textbook, saying that "the new textbook finally describes historical truths contrary to the history textbooks published by left-wing publishers", and the textbook issue became intensified as a case of ideological conflict. In Korean history, the history textbook was once put under state control during the authoritarian regime under
Park Chung-hee Park Chung-hee (, ; 14 November 1917 – 26 October 1979) was a South Korean politician and army general who served as the dictator of South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1979; ruling as an unelected military strongman from 1961 ...
(1963–1979), who is a father of Park Geun-hye, former President of South Korea, and was used as a means to keep the Yushin Regime, also known as the Yushin Dictatorship; however, there had been continuous criticisms about the system especially from the 1980s when Korea experienced a dramatic democratic development. In 2003, reformation of textbook began when the textbooks on Korean modern and contemporary history were published though the Textbook Screening System, which allows textbooks to be published not by a single government body but by many different companies, for the first time.


Turkey

Education in Turkey is centralized, and its policy, administration, and content are each determined by the Turkish government. Textbooks taught in schools are either prepared directly by the Ministry of National Education (MEB) or must be approved by its Instruction and Education Board. In practice, this means that the Turkish government is directly responsible for what textbooks are taught in schools across Turkey.Akcam: Textbooks and the Armenian Genocide in Turkey: Heading Towards 2015
'' Armenian Weekly''
In 2014,
Taner Akçam Altuğ Taner Akçam (born 1953) is a Turkish-German historian and sociologist. During the 1990s, he was the first Turkish scholar to acknowledge the Armenian genocide, and has written several books on the genocide, such as '' A Shameful Act'' ( ...
, writing for the '' Armenian Weekly'', discussed 2014–2015 Turkish elementary and middle school textbooks that the MEB had made available on the internet. He found that Turkish history textbooks describe Armenians as people "who are incited by foreigners, who aim to break apart the state and the country, and who murdered Turks and Muslims." The Armenian genocide is referred to as the "Armenian matter", and is described as a lie perpetrated to further the perceived hidden agenda of Armenians. Recognition of the Armenian genocide is defined as the "biggest threat to Turkish national security". Akçam summarized one textbook that claims the Armenians had sided with the Russians during the war. The 1909 Adana massacre, in which as many as 20,000–30,000 Armenians were massacred, is identified as "The Rebellion of Armenians of Adana". According to the book, the Armenian
Hnchak The Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (SDHP) ( hy, Սոցիալ Դեմոկրատ Հնչակյան Կուսակցություն; ՍԴՀԿ, translit=Sots’ial Demokrat Hnch’akyan Kusakts’ut’yun), is the oldest continuously-operating Armenian ...
and Dashnak organizations instituted rebellions in many parts of Anatolia, and "didn't hesitate to kill Armenians who would not join them," issuing instructions that "if you want to survive you have to kill your neighbor first." Claims highlighted by Akçam: "
he Armenians murdered He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
many people living in villages, even children, by attacking Turkish villages, which had become defenseless because all the Turkish men were fighting on the war fronts. ... They stabbed the Ottoman forces in the back. They created obstacles for the operations of the Ottoman units by cutting off their supply routes and destroying bridges and roads. ... They spied for Russia and by rebelling in the cities where they were located, they eased the way for the Russian invasion. ... Since the Armenians who engaged in massacres in collaboration with the Russians created a dangerous situation, this law required the migration of rmenian peoplefrom the towns they were living in to Syria, a safe Ottoman territory. ... Despite being in the midst of war, the Ottoman state took precautions and measures when it came to the Armenians who were migrating. Their tax payments were postponed, they were permitted to take any personal property they wished, government officials were assigned to ensure that they were protected from attacks during the journey and that their needs were met, police stations were established to ensure that their lives and properties were secure." Similar revisionist claims found in other textbooks by Akçam included that Armenian "back-stabbing" was the reason the Ottomans lost the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 (similar to the post-War German
stab-in-the-back myth The stab-in-the-back myth (, , ) was an antisemitic conspiracy theory that was widely believed and promulgated in Germany after 1918. It maintained that the Imperial German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield, but was instead ...
), that the
Hamidian massacres The Hamidian massacres also called the Armenian massacres, were massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the mid-1890s. Estimated casualties ranged from 100,000 to 300,000, Akçam, Taner (2006) '' A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide an ...
never happened, that the Armenians were armed by the Russians during late World War I to fight the Ottomans (in reality they had already been nearly annihilated from the area by this point), that Armenians killed 600,000 Turks during said war, that the deportation were to save Armenians from other violent Armenian gangs, and that deported Armenians were later allowed to retrieve their possessions and return to Turkey unharmed. As of 2015, Turkish textbooks continue to refer to Armenians as "traitors," deny the genocide, and assert that the Ottoman Turks "took necessary measures to counter Armenian separatism". Students are taught that Armenians were forcibly relocated to defend Turkish nationals from attacks, and Armenians are described as "dishonorable and treacherous".


Yugoslavia

Throughout the post war era, though Tito denounced nationalist sentiments in historiography, those trends continued with Croat and Serbian academics at times accusing each other of misrepresenting each other's histories, especially in relation to the Croat-Nazi alliance. Communist historiography was challenged in the 1980s and a rehabilitation of Serbian nationalism by Serbian historians began. Historians and other members of the intelligentsia belonging to the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) and the Writers Association played a significant role in the explanation of the new historical narrative. The process of writing a "new Serbian history" paralleled alongside the emerging ethno-nationalist mobilization of Serbs with the objective of reorganizing the Yugoslav federation. Using ideas and concepts from Holocaust historiography, Serbian historians alongside church leaders applied it to World War Two Yugoslavia and equated the Serbs with Jews and Croats with Nazi Germans. Chetniks along with the Ustashe were vilified by Tito era historiography within Yugoslavia. In the 1980s, Serbian historians initiated the process of re-examining the narrative of how World War Two was told in Yugoslavia which was accompanied by the rehabilitation of Četnik leader
Draža Mihailović Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović ( sr-Cyrl, Драгољуб Дража Михаиловић; 27 April 1893 – 17 July 1946) was a Yugoslavs, Yugoslav Serb general during World War II. He was the leader of the Chetniks, Chetnik Detachments ...
. Monographs relating to Mihailović and the Četnik movement were produced by some younger historians who were ideologically close to it towards the end of the 1990s. Being preoccupied with the era, Serbian historians have looked to vindicate the history of the Chetniks by portraying them as righteous freedom fighters battling the Nazis while removing from history books the ambiguous alliances with the Italians and Germans. Whereas the crimes committed by Chetniks against Croats and Muslims in Serbian historiography are overall "cloaked in silence". During the Milošević era, Serbian history was falsified to obscure the role Serbian collaborators Milan Nedić and Dimitrije Ljotić played in cleansing Serbia's Jewish community, killing them in the country or deporting them to Eastern European concentration camps. In the 1990s following a massive Western media coverage of the Yugoslav Wars, there was a rise of the publications considering the matter on historical revisionism of former Yugoslavia. One of the most prominent authors on the field of historical revisionism in the 1990s considering the newly emerged republics is Noel Malcolm and his works ''Bosnia: A Short History (1994)'' and ''Kosovo: A Short History (1998)'', that have seen a robust debate among historians following their release; following the release of the latter, the merits of the book were the subject of an extended debate in ''Foreign Affairs''. Critics said that the book was "marred by his sympathies for its ethnic Albanian separatists, anti-Serbian bias, and illusions about the Balkans". In late 1999, Thomas Emmert of the history faculty of
Gustavus Adolphus College Gustavus Adolphus College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in St. Peter, Minnesota. It was founded in 1862 by Swedish Americans led by Eric Norelius and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Gustavus gets its nam ...
in Minnesota reviewed the book in ''Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans Online'' and while praising aspects of the book also asserted that it was "shaped by the author's overriding determination to challenge Serbian myths", that Malcolm was "partisan", and also complained that the book made a "transparent attempt to prove that the main Serbian myths are false". In 2006, a study by Frederick Anscombe looked at issues surrounding scholarship on Kosovo such as Noel Malcolm's work ''Kosovo: A Short History''. Anscombe noted that Malcolm offered a "a detailed critique of the competing versions of Kosovo's history" and that his work marked a "remarkable reversal" of previous acceptance by Western historians of the "Serbian account" regarding the migration of the Serbs (1690) from Kosovo.. "Noel Malcolm, who offers a detailed critique of the competing versions of Kosovo's history... Here is a remarkable reversal, as Malcolm, like other Western historians, had previously accepted the Serbian account." Malcolm has been criticized for being "anti-Serbian" and selective like the Serbs with the sources, while other more restrained critics note that "his arguments are unconvincing". Anscombe noted that Malcolm, like Serbian and Yugoslav historians who have ignored his conclusions sideline and are unwilling to consider indigenous evidence such as that from the Ottoman archive when composing national history.. "Malcolm is criticized for being anti-Serbian, and for using his sources as selectively as the Serbs, though the more restrained of his critics only suggest that his arguments are unconvincing. Most of the documents he relies on were written by enemies of the Ottoman Empire, or by officials with limited experience of the Ottoman Balkans... Malcolm, like the historians of Serbia and Yugoslavia who ignore his findings, overlooks the most valuable indigenous evidence. Unwillingness to consider Ottoman evidence when constructing national history is exemplified by the Serbian historians..."


French law recognizing colonialism's positive value

On 23 February 2005, the Union for a Popular Movement conservative majority at the
French National Assembly The National Assembly (french: link=no, italics=set, Assemblée nationale; ) is the lower house of the bicameral French Parliament under the Fifth Republic, the upper house being the Senate (). The National Assembly's legislators are known a ...
voted a law compelling history textbooks and teachers to "acknowledge and recognize in particular the positive role of the French presence abroad, especially in North Africa". It was criticized by historians and teachers, among them Pierre Vidal-Naquet, who refused to recognize the French Parliament's right to influence the way history is written (despite the French Holocaust denial laws, see ''
Loi Gayssot The Gayssot Act or Gayssot Law (french: Loi Gayssot), enacted on 13 July 1990, makes it an offence in France to question the existence or size of the category of crimes against humanity as defined in the London Charter of 1945, on the basis of wh ...
''). That law was also challenged by left-wing parties and the former French colonies; critics argued that the law was tantamount to refusing to acknowledge the racism inherent to French colonialism, and that the law proper is a form of historical revisionism.In retaliation against the law, Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika refused to sign a prepared "friendly treaty" with France. On 26 June 2005, Bouteflika declared that the law "approached mental blindness, negationism and revisionism". In Martinique, Aimé Césaire, author of the '' Négritude'' literary movement, refused to receive UMP leader
Nicolas Sarkozy Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012. Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Se ...
, the incumbent president of France.


Marcos martial law negationism in the Philippines

In the Philippines, the biggest examples of historical negationism are linked to the Marcos family dynasty, usually Imelda Marcos,
Bongbong Marcos Ferdinand "Bongbong" Romualdez Marcos Jr. ( , , ; born September 13, 1957), commonly referred to by the initials PBBM or BBM, is a Filipino politician who is the 17th and current president of the Philippines. He previously served as a senat ...
, and Imee Marcos specifically. They have been accused of denying or trivializing the human rights violations during martial law and the plunder of the Philippines' coffers while
Ferdinand Marcos Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. ( , , ; September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino politician, lawyer, dictator, and kleptocrat who was the 10th president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled under martial ...
was president.


Denial of the Muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula

A spin-off of the vision of history espoused by the "inclusive Spanish nationalism" built in opposition to the National-Catholic brand of Spanish nationalism, it was first coined by Ignacio Olagüe (a dilettante historian connected to the early
Spanish fascism Falangism ( es, falangismo) was the political ideology of two political parties in Spain that were known as the Falange, namely first the Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FE de las JONS) and afterwards the Fal ...
) particularly in the former's 1974 work ''La revolución islámica en Occidente'' ("The Islamic revolution in the West"). The negationist postulates of Olagüe were later adopted by certain sectors within
Andalusian nationalism Andalusian nationalism is the nationalism that asserts that Andalusian people, Andalusians are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of Andalusians. In the past it was considered to be represented primarily by the Andalusian Party. However, the ...
. These ideas were resurrected in the early 21st century by the Arabist Emilio González Ferrín.


Australia

During the British colonization of Australia, the Indigenous Australian population drastically plummeted during the Australian frontier wars. Under the '' terra nullius'' doctrine, aboriginal people were regarded as lacking any concept of property rights and thus no treaty was ever signed to negotiate land from the native inhabitants. Massacres and mass poisonings have also been carried out against indigenous people during colonization as well. In addition, indigenous children were removed from their families in an assimilation project designed to absorb the native population into white society in an attempt to "breed out the color" in what's known as the Stolen Generations. After the release of the ''
Bringing Them Home ''Bringing Them Home'' is the 1997 Australian ''Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families''. The report marked a pivotal moment in the controversy that has come to ...
'' report in 1997, the John Howard administration denied that the Stolen Generations were committed with genocidal intent and refused to apologize for the program. Right-wing historians such as Keith Windschuttle have written books claiming that genocide against Indigenous Australians never happened, arguing that the mortality rates among aboriginal people during colonization were largely due to disease and that the Stolen Generations were actually committed with the intent to protect children from neglect in abusive families. Conservative historians have also claimed that the idea of a genocide against aboriginal people is a myth deliberately fabricated by orthodox historians in support of a "black armband" view of history conveying the message of white guilt.


Ramifications and judicature

Some countries have criminalized historical revisionism of historic events such as the Holocaust. The
Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...
defines it as the "denial, gross minimisation, approval or justification of genocide or
crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
" (article 6, ''Additional Protocol to the Convention on cybercrime'').


International law

Some council-member states proposed an additional protocol to the
Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...
Cybercrime Convention, addressing materials and "acts of racist or xenophobic nature committed through computer networks"; it was negotiated from late 2001 to early 2002, and, on 7 November 2002, the
Council of Europe Committee of Ministers The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe ( French: ''Comité des ministres du Conseil de l'Europe'') or Committee of Ministers ( French: ''Comité des ministres'') is the Council of Europe's decision-making body. It comprises the Fore ...
adopted the protocol's final text titled ''Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cyber-crime, Concerning the Criminalisation of Acts of a Racist and Xenophobic Nature Committed through Computer Systems'', ("Protocol"). It opened on 28 January 2003, and became current on 1 March 2006; as of 30 November 2011, 20 States have signed and ratified the Protocol, and 15 others have signed, but not yet ratified it (including Canada and South Africa). The Protocol requires participant States to criminalize the dissemination of racist and xenophobic material, and of racist and xenophobic threats and insults through computer networks, such as the Internet.Frequently asked questions and answers Council of Europe Convention on cyber-crime
by the United States Department of Justice
Article 6, Section 1 of the Protocol specifically covers Holocaust Denial, and other genocides recognized as such by international courts, established since 1945, by relevant international legal instruments. Section 2 of Article 6 allows a Party to the Protocol, at their discretion, only to prosecute the violator if the crime is committed with the intent to incite hatred or discrimination or violence; or to use a reservation, by allowing a Party not to apply Article 6 – either partly or entirely. The Council of Europe's ''Explanatory Report'' of the Protocol says that the " European Court of Human Rights has made it clear that the denial or revision of 'clearly established historical facts – such as the Holocaust  –  ... would be removed from the protection of Article 10 by Article 17' of the European Convention on Human Rights" (see the '' Lehideux and Isorni'' judgement of 23 September 1998); Two of the English-speaking states in Europe, Ireland and the United Kingdom, have not signed the additional protocol, (the third, Malta, signed on 28 January 2003, but has not yet ratified it). On 8 July 2005 Canada became the only non-European state to sign the convention. They were joined by South Africa in April 2008. The United States government does not believe that the final version of the Protocol is consistent with the United States' First Amendment Constitutional rights and has informed the Council of Europe that the United States will not become a Party to the protocol.APCoc Treaty open for signature by the States which have signed the Treaty ETS 185.
on the
Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...
web site


Domestic law

There are domestic laws against negationism and
hate speech Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...
(which may encompass negationism) in several countries, including: * Austria (Article I §3 Verbotsgesetz 1947 with its 1992 updates and added paragraph §3h). * Belgium (
Belgian Holocaust denial law The Belgian Holocaust denial law, passed on 23 March 1995, bans public Holocaust denial. Specifically, the law makes it illegal to publicly "deny, play down, justify or approve of the genocide committed by the German National Socialist regime during ...
). * Czech Republic. * France (
Gayssot Act The Gayssot Act or Gayssot Law (french: Loi Gayssot), enacted on 13 July 1990, makes it an offence in France to question the existence or size of the category of crimes against humanity as defined in the London Charter of 1945, on the basis of wh ...
). * Germany (§130(3) of the penal code).Text of §130(3) of the German penal code
(in German).
* Hungary. * Israel. *
Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
. * Luxembourg. * Poland (Article 55 of the law establishing the Institute of National Remembrance 1998). * Portugal. * Romania. * Slovakia. * Switzerland (Article 261bis of the Penal Code). Additionally, the Netherlands considers denying the Holocaust as a
hate crime A hate crime (also known as a bias-motivated crime or bias crime) is a prejudice-motivated crime which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of their membership (or perceived membership) of a certain social group or racial demograph ...
– which is a punishable offence.The Laws Banning Holocaust Denial
Genocide Prevention Now. Retrieved 28 November 2011. pp. 1–9
Wider use of domestic laws include the 1990 French ''
Gayssot Act The Gayssot Act or Gayssot Law (french: Loi Gayssot), enacted on 13 July 1990, makes it an offence in France to question the existence or size of the category of crimes against humanity as defined in the London Charter of 1945, on the basis of wh ...
'' that prohibits any "racist, anti-Semitic or xenophobic" speech, and the Czech Republic and Ukraine have criminalized the denial and the minimization of Communist-era crimes.


In fiction

In the novel '' Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (1949) by
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
, the government of Oceania continually revises historical records to concord with the contemporary political explanations of The Party. When Oceania is at war with Eurasia, the public records (newspapers, cinema, television) indicate that Oceania has been always at war with Eurasia; yet, when Eurasia and Oceania are no longer fighting each other, the historical records are subjected to negationism; thus, the populace are
brainwashed Brainwashed may refer to: *Brainwashing, to affect a person's mind by using extreme mental pressure or any other mind-affecting process Music Albums * Brainwashed (George Harrison album), ''Brainwashed'' (George Harrison album), 2002, or the ...
to believe that Oceania and Eurasia always have been allies against Eastasia. The protagonist of the story,
Winston Smith Winston Smith may refer to: People * Winston Smith (artist) (born 1952), American artist * Winston Smith (athlete) (born 1982), Olympic track and field athlete * Winston Boogie Smith (born ), American man killed by law enforcement in 2021 * Winst ...
, is an editor in the Ministry of Truth, responsible for effecting the continual historical revisionism that will negate the contradictions of the past upon the contemporary world of Oceania. To cope with the psychological stresses of life during wartime, Smith begins a diary, in which he observes that "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future", and so illustrates the principal, ideological purpose of historical negationism. Franz Kurowski was an extremely prolific right-wing German writer who dedicated his entire career to the production of Nazi military propaganda, followed by post-war military pulp fiction and revisionist histories of World War II, claiming the humane behaviour and innocence of war crimes of the '' Wehrmacht'', glorifying war as a desirable state, while fabricating eyewitness reports of atrocities allegedly committed by the Allies, especially Bomber Command and the air raids on Cologne and Dresden as a planned genocide of the civilian population.*


See also

*
Academic integrity Academic integrity is the moral code or ethical policy of academia. The term was popularized by the R.C (USA), who is considered to be the "grandfather of academic integrity". Other prominent academic integrity scholars and advocates include Trace ...
* Alternative facts *
Ash heap of history The phrase "ash heap of history", literarily speaking, refers to ghost towns or artifacts that have lost their relevance. Visiting Rome in the 14th century, Italian writer Petrarch called the city "a rubbish heap of history". In 1887 the Englis ...
* Big lie * Black legend * Cognitive dissonance * '' Damnatio memoriae'' * Doublethink * Dunning School (United States) * History wars (Australia) * History wars (Canada) * Information warfare * Memory hole *
National memory National memory is a form of collective memory defined by shared experiences and culture. It is an integral part to national identity. It represents one specific form of cultural memory, which makes an essential contribution to national group coh ...
*
Selective omission Selective omission is a memory bias. In collective memory, it is a bias where a group (state, media, public opinion) works to forget traumatic memories. This expression is often used for post-war rewriting of history in a more coherent way acc ...
– biases to taboo some elements of a
collective memory Collective memory refers to the shared pool of memories, knowledge and information of a social group that is significantly associated with the group's identity. The English phrase "collective memory" and the equivalent French phrase "la mémoire c ...


Cases of denialism

*
1776 Commission The 1776 Commission, also nicknamed the 1776 Project, was an advisory committee established in September 2020 by then-U.S. President Donald Trump to support what he called "patriotic education". The commission, which included no historians spe ...
*
Anti-Katyn Anti-Katyn ( pl, Anty-Katyń, russian: Анти-Катынь) is a denialism campaign intended to reduce and obscure the significance of the Katyn massacre of 1940 — where approximately 22,000 Polish officers were murdered by the Soviet NKVD ...
*
Denial of the Holodomor Holodomor denial ( uk, заперечення Голодомору, translit=zaperechennia Holodomoru) is the claim that the Holodomor, a large-scale, man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932–1933, did not occur. Richard Pipes, '' Russi ...
*
Genocide denial Genocide denial is the attempt to deny or minimize the scale and severity of an instance of genocide. Denial is an integral part of genocide and includes secret planning of genocide, propaganda while the genocide is going on, and destruction of ...
– lists a number of particular cases * North–South divide in Taiwan *
Temple denial Temple denial is a claim advanced by Palestinian political leaders, religious figures, intellectuals, and authors that the successive Temples in Jerusalem did not exist or were placed other than on the Temple Mount. Yitzhak Reiter describes the ...
*
Waffen-SS in popular culture The ''Waffen-SS'', the combat branch of the paramilitary SS organisation of Nazi Germany, is often portrayed uncritically or admiringly in popular culture. The activities of HIAG, a German lobby group founded by former high-ranking ''Waffen-SS' ...
*
White Legend The Black Legend ( es, Leyenda negra) or the Spanish Black Legend ( es, Leyenda negra española, link=no) is a theorised historiographical tendency which consists of anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic propaganda. Its proponents argue that its r ...


Notes


References


Sources

* * * *


Further reading

* *
Shourie, Arun Arun Shourie (born 2 November 1941) is an Indian economist, journalist, author and politician. He has worked as an economist with the World Bank, a consultant to the Planning Commission of India, editor of the ''Indian Express'' and ''The Times ...
. 2014. Eminent historians: their technology, their line, their fraud. HarperCollins. . * Arun Shourie, Sita Ram Goel, Harsh Narain, J. Dubashi & Ram Swarup. Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them Vol. I, (A Preliminary Survey) (1990) .


External links


Untruth in the Classroom, 1994

Why "revisionism" isn't

Mad Revisionist: A parody site on historical revisionism


presented at the trial "Irving vs. (1) Lipstadt and (2) Penguin Books"

– a satirical look at historical revisionism
43-page long academic paper about revisionism concerning the Amerindians
by ''The Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law'' Vol. 18, No. 3
Nizkor Project
Web site answering Holocaust deniers {{authority control Pseudohistory