Moscow’s Victory Parade as a barometer for the strength of pro-Russian narratives

The military parade in Moscow on the occasion of Victory Day on May 9 and the list of announced and confirmed guests, despite the warning of the European Commission that this event is classic Russian propaganda that attempts to justify the Russian military invasion of Ukraine and its “denazification,” has continued to be a widespread topic among domestic media outlets and among social media users in recent days

 

Author: Stojan Sinadinov

 

“To Moscow! To Moscow!” is the famous line from the play “Three Sisters” by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, but also an alternative title of a theatrical play created as a compilation of the texts of the aforementioned play and the novella “Peasants” by the same author. In “Three Sisters,” Chekhov portrays the hopeless situation in a provincial town in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and the great desire of the protagonists to change their lives for the better, expressed through the nostalgic cry for a return to the capital—”To Moscow! To Moscow!” Incidentally, Chekhov wrote the play “Three Sisters” in Yalta, on the Crimean Peninsula, in 1901, in his mature creative phase (the writer died in 1904).

These days, the phrase “To Moscow! to Moscow !” is once again relevant, and furthermore, Crimea is here—a disputed territory in Russian-Ukrainian relations throughout history, and it seems that it will continue to be so in the future—as the “birthplace” of this drama. Depending on political preferences, that call has an exclamation point (!) or a question mark (?) regarding the presence of guests at the Victory Parade over Fascism, which has gone through various variations in the past eight decades among the members of the former USSR and the Warsaw Pact.

 

Who will be attending in Moscow on May 9th?

This year, the parade is being held for the 80th time, but even before the Russian military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the event has already lost its former political splendor, so the number of important guests is decreasing year by year, as is the exhibition of the latest technological achievements of the Russian military industry. Or, to be more precise, Europe celebrates May 8 as Victory in Europe Day, and May 9 as Europe Day, when the anniversary of the Declaration of French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman is marked, who on May 9, 1950, proposed the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community, the beginning of what is today the European Union.

For several weeks, the official Kremlin has been stirring public attention with the names of world leaders who have announced or confirmed that they will attend the parade, which has already become a barometer for Moscow’s position on the world political map. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico are so far the “most resounding” names from Europe who will check in on May 9 in Moscow, despite the European Union’s warning to member states and those who want to join the Union in the future not to take that step, because the celebration of Victory Day in Moscow is part of Russian propaganda and an attempt to justify the invasion of Ukraine. Interestingly, even Viktor Orbán, unlike his Slovak counterpart Fico, understood the seriousness of the message, so he will not be in the company of standard Russian allies, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In addition to them, the guest list for the Moscow parade includes leaders from Russia’s neighboring countries in Central Asia, as well as representatives of some of the BRICS member states, the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Thus, according to the propaganda principle of an inverted mirror, the placement of information about who will attend the parade in Moscow attempts to downplay Russia’s continuous isolation in the Western democratic world.

The engine fuel of Russia’s “denazification” of Ukraine

The pro-Russian narrative of a military invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the Kremlin’s alleged need to “denazify” the neighboring country continues to be the “engine fuel” among media outlets and social media posts, most often “justified” by claims that “anyone who won’t go to Moscow is a fascist.”

Macedonian media outlets have been reporting extensively on Serbian President Vučić’s intention to attend the military parade in Moscow on May 9th at all costs (here), and some of them (here, here) have also published the transcript of the conversation between Serbian Patriarch Porfirije and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The current student and civil protests in Serbia were also a topic of their conversation, and the opposition has been complaining that Porfirije, by courting Russian secular and church leaders, has become “Vučić’s courier.”

“Color revolution—you know that. I hope we will overcome that temptation, as you said. Because we know and feel that the centers of power in the West do not want the identity of the Serbian people and its culture to develop, “ said Serbian Patriarch Porfirije.

The European Commission has already warned that the celebration of Victory Day in Moscow is classic Russian propaganda, but the Kremlin is not stopping, as seen by the latest move—Russian President Putin’s announcement of a three-day ceasefire in the war in Ukraine during the period (May 8, 9, 10) when Victory Day is celebrated in Moscow, which was immediately sharply condemned by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

This does not bother domestic social media users who glorify the “courage” of Serbian President Vučić and his “defiance” towards the European Union (here, here, and here) while gallantly accusing the EU that “… today the EU is enjoying this slaughter in Ukraine, because two fraternal Slavic peoples are killing each other and it is the fault of all of us Slavs, who, while we were building civilization, the Westerners lived in caves, so that today we are peoples without a clear concept of society:”

“When May 9 was transformed into Europe Day, the revision of the history of World War II began.
Europe, in which, from Spain, through Italy, to Germany, fascist Germany rose with American capital and Vatican ideology, in order to kill off what little Slavic was left in the world. The first three places in terms of the number of victims in World War II are Russians, Poles, and Yugoslavs, mostly Serbs,” the Facebook post says, among other things.

Similar posts across social networks continue to criticize European standards while promoting open pro-Russian propaganda (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) that glorify the “courage” of those who intend to attend the military parade in Moscow despite possible sanctions, while mixing internationalism, anti-fascism, pan-Slavism…

The rare exceptions among social media posts (like this one here) grasp the historical moment and the context of pro-Russian propaganda. Therefore, just as the call “To Moscow! to Moscow!” from Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” (by the way, one of the most crucial texts in world drama) was avant-garde at that historical moment, today, that same mantra on the lips of pro-Putin supporters represents something entirely different—and dangerous for peace and stability in the world.

 

 

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