History and Historians
in the Post-Truth Era: Monopoly, Polyphony, Cacophony?

Recent events in Russia have shown that neither the awareness of the devastating impact of historical manipulations, nor the copious amount of research undertaken to reconstruct past events and historical processes objectively or even the new possibilities granted by new media and communication tools can prevent the rewriting of history for the sake of imperialistic, nationalistic or ideological interests.

Pages of history brought to light after decades of concealment are now coming under attack. And the problem is worse than that: even long-established and well-documented facts are at risk of manipulation. Long-debunked myths and statements proven to be lies are once again being presented as legitimate versions of past events or even as indisputable "truths". The active construction of myths and the continuous attacks on history are characteristic of authoritarian regimes, which make efficient use of new technologies for this purpose and do not neglect the use of traditional means (e.g., school textbooks, monuments, etc.). However, history is also often instrumentalised and manipulated by a variety of political forces, social groups and individuals in democratic countries.

New information technologies have made it more difficult to establish monopolies over historical narratives by broadening the range of players active in the field of historical memory and by giving a voice to those whose views or experiences would have gone largely unheard in the past. At the same time, these technologies have given historians unprecedented opportunities for the verification of facts and access to a large amount of data, as well as the possibilities to address wide audiences.

Nevertheless, this new situation is also resulting in a sort of "overproduction" of history, the undermining of the legitimacy of expert knowledge, and the blurring of the boundaries between "real" and "fake" news, between an account of events documented by historical sources and multiple versions of the past.

This "post-factual" situation brings with it broad opportunities for the manipulation of history and the construction of new mythologies. Various forms of "fake history" and falsification of history – ranging from the concealment, distortion and manipulation of individual facts to the creation of completely bogus "pseudo-histories" – exist in today's Russia. This has long been one of the regime's most important policy tools. In a situation of authoritarian control over the past, an alternative version of events, styled as "scientific research" and supported by the authority of the state or some other powerful propaganda tools, can be pushed forward in opposition to any sound research or expert analysis. These phenomena are not restricted to authoritarian systems though: they are emerging in other countries, albeit in less extreme forms, in conjunction with the loss of authority in society for expert knowledge.

What can researchers and experts do in the face of this post-factual era and the overproduction of historical knowledge?