Prosecutors of history

The fact that the history of the country is rewritten by judges - and not only in Russia

Under the recent news from France, you can put a hashtag #in a non -captable: French judges also decided to compete with falsifiers of history. The right -wing politician and journalist Eric darmur was sentenced to a fine for his statement that Marshal Peten saved Jews during the Nazi occupation. The case lasted more than five years, the courts of the first two instances of Zammur justified, but the Cassation Court decided to revise the verdict.

The law, on the basis of which Zemura was judged, was adopted back in 1990. He introduces criminal liability for the denial or justification of crimes against the humanity established by the Nuremberg Tribunal. In France, he is known as the “Geyzo Law” - by the name of the deputy who proposed him from the Communist Party. However, with the Nonsense, he could be called the “Forisson law” - “in honor” of Professor Robert Forisson, a researcher at the poetry of French symbolism from the University of Lyon, however, who received, however, much of the fame as a renewer of the Holocaust. It was the public speeches of Forisson that became one of the decisive arguments in favor of the adoption of the “Gaso Law”.

Throughout its existence, the law is criticized - including from many historians who have not been transmitted to the conviction of politicians and lawyers that historical issues can be resolved by judicial verdicts and parliamentary decisions. Among his opponents were such pillars of French historical thought of the second half of the 20th century, like Pierre Nora and Pierre Vidal-Nak.

Even more criticisms caused numerous attempts to expand the scope of the “Geyzo Law” or adopt such laws for other genocides (for example, Armenian). The scandal ended with an attempt by the Association of Antiles, Guyans, Reyunonians and Mahors to attract Olivier Peter-Grenuio, the author of the monograph “Black slave trade”, which is now evaluated as classical work on the topic (as a result, the claim was recalled). In the wake of the fight against memorial laws and activist groups, the Association "For Freedom of History" arose. “History is just a long series of crimes against humanity. And since the authors of these crimes are already dead, such laws are intended only in order to pursue in a civil or criminal manner historians studying these periods and professors who teach them, ”said Pierre Nora already mentioned.

Nevertheless, as the "case of Zemura" shows, the "law of Geiso" is alive and feels great. Moreover, it begins to be interpreted more and more expansion. The “crime” of Zemura is to exchange replicas with the famous public intellectual Bernar-Henri Levy during television battles in the fall of 2019.

“Once you dared to say that Peten saved the Jews,” Levy said.

“French, specify, French Jews,” Semur interrupted him.

“This is monstrous, this is revisionism,” Levy continued.

“I repeat, such a reality, I am very sorry,” said Zemur.

As you can see, Zammur did not diminish the scale of the Holocaust, did not question the fact of the deportation of Jews from France to the destruction camp, did not deny the existence of gas chambers, like Forisson. He only believed that the Vichyists, led by Marshal Peten, delimited Jews with French citizenship from foreign Jewish and tried to help first. It would seem that a completely private question, when discussing which you can do without lawyers' intervention. Nevertheless, the trial lasted more than five years and, probably, has not yet been completed (Zammur has the right to appeal).

The courts of the first instances justified Zemura just because he "did not try to belittle the number of victims of deportations or challenge the policy of extermination in concentration camps." Another argument in his favor is that Philip Peten was convicted after the war by the French court not for crimes against humanity, but for "an encroachment on the internal security of France" and "conspiracy with the enemy." But the cassation court preferred an expansion interpretation of the norm of the law.

And here it is difficult - with all the obvious differences in the legal systems of the two countries - not to notice the similarity of the fate of the “Geyzo Law” with the evolution of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Rehabilitation of Nazism”. After all, in the first edition of 2014, she also introduced liability only for "denial of the facts established by the verdict of the international tribunal."

And also - however, immediately, and not after 35 years - began to be interpreted extremely expansion. It was used, for example, to combat the glorification of Ukrainian nationalist leaders and organizations, which no one discussed in Nuremberg. However, Russian officials and Russian propaganda have long been approving the opposite for a long time, constantly telling that “Bandera and Shukhevich were accomplices of Hitler and, like the like, were condemned by the Nuremberg Tribunal” (S.V. Lavrov).

In 2021, Article 354.1 was supplemented by some very strange formulations like the “spread of knowingly false information about veterans of the Great Patriotic War”, the whole meaning of which (formulations) is precisely in uncertainty and elasticity. As a result, now, for example, the teachers of the history of Alexander Karpenko are going to judge in the Kuban, who is accused of working in a work published in a scientific journal, “negatively evaluated the actions of Marshal Zhukov G.K.”, and also hardened the words of the Victory and the Sanizer Parade.

The “Demorah” case is so useful, which prevents the temptation to write off all this on Russian specifics. Yes, Russia passed on the road of the regulation of the past and memory of it much further than the vast majority of states. But the mechanisms of legal work with history themselves - they are more or less the same everywhere: in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, France. Any laws on the construction of friends of the people and dumping enemies from it, about the correct and incorrect memory, etc. They work approximately the same. Starting with something compact and concrete, they gradually apply to more and more new spheres and after some time they begin to claim to crush historical knowledge as such.

Because freedom of speech - it is either or not. It is impossible to forbid people to discuss a white monkey and pretend that they are still free in their statements. It doesn't work like that. It is enough to criminalize the debate in any one area-and soon the entire territory will be marked with limiting flags. What, however, the Russians are informed much better than the French.