CSTO AS A REGIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR COORDINATING APPROACHES IN HISTORICAL POLITICS

Abstract

This article examines the formation of a collective historical policy within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The authors analyze theoretical approaches to the concept of “politics of memory,” adhering to its understanding as an instrument of public state strategies for shaping an image of the past in mass consciousness that is relevant to the contemporary political context. Special attention is paid to the foreign policy dimension of historical politics as a tool for strengthening partnership relations and the international positioning of states, as well as for countering attempts to falsify history. Using the example of attitudes towards the events of the Great Patriotic War, the article traces the evolution of the CSTO’s historical narrative based on an analysis of its political declarations from 2010 to 2025. The authors identify key elements of the approach to history agreed upon by the member states: the inadmissibility of revising the outcomes of World War 2, condemnation of the glorification of Nazism, protection of war memorials, respect for the Nuremberg Trials decisions, and recognition of the Nazis’ actions against the population of the USSR as genocide. Additionally, the article examines the practical measures and steps taken by the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly to implement these political assessments into the national legislation of member states, including recommendations on the criminalization of Nazi rehabilitation and countering the distortion of historical truth.