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Historical memory and securitisation of the Russian intervention in Syria

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Abstract

Memories of the past conflicts are a major part of Russian foreign policy discourse. Scholarly literature highlighted the widespread use of Second World War references in Russian discourse during the Ukraine crisis. However, the use of historical memory in the context of Russia’s intervention in Syria remains underinvestigated. Applying securitisation theory, the paper analyses a set of political statements made by Russian pro-government and opposition politicians between 2015 and 2018. The analysis identifies several ways in which they integrate memory and security discourse. These include pro-Kremlin actors’ justifications of the intervention through references to the War on Terror and Chechen Wars; the anti-systemic opposition’s de-securitisation of the Syrian conflict by exposing manipulative uses of history; and the systemic opposition’s counter-securitisation of the intervention itself as an existential threat to Russia through references to the Soviet–Afghan war. The paper concludes by discussing the relationship between historical memory and security discourse.

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Notes

  1. See Bates (2009) on memory instrumentalisation during the Kosovo 1999 intervention, Angstrom (2011) on historical memory and the War on Terror, Wertsch and Karumidze (2009) on the role of history during the Russian-Georgian war in 2008.

  2. For more information, see Gaufman (2015), Siddi (2017) and Makhortykh (2018).

  3. For some examples, see Mälksoo (2009), Gaufman (2015; 2017), Strukov and Apryshchenko (2018).

  4. For additional information on the Russian intervention and its role for Russia’s foreign policy, see Notte (2016), Dannreuther (2018) and Siddi (2019).

  5. The difference between systemic and anti-systemic opposition in Russia is discussed by Turovsky (2015). Systemic opposition is an integral part of the authoritarian regime in Russia. It agrees to play by the regime’s rules and has some access to power. Anti-systemic opposition does not have access to power and aims at regime change.

  6. For examples of “loyal” opposition’s attitudes towards intervention in Syria, see Ziuganov (2015; 2016) and Zhirinovskii (2016).

  7. While the beginning of the official intervention of Russia in Syria is dated by 30 September 2015, the whole month of September was used to account for the possibility of some Russian actors starting making securitising moves to prepare the ground for the intervention in advance.

  8. Because many of the statements were transcriptions of meetings between political actors from Russia and other countries, there were a number of cases when speech acts were produced only by non-Russian actors; such cases were excluded from the analysis.

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  1. Institute of Communication and Media Studies, University of Bern, Fabrikstrasse 8, 3012, Bern, Switzerland

    Mykola Makhortykh

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Makhortykh, M. Historical memory and securitisation of the Russian intervention in Syria. Int Polit 57, 1063–1081 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-020-00232-w

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