Understand the past as a living product requires art. Any national movement, any dictatorship needs the symbols of the past that legitimize claims to law and tradition. This is evident both on the example of Nazi Germany, with its cult of Wagner, and on the example of the USSR, where the pantheon of national heroes was created, both from the midst of military leaders (Suvorov, Kutuzov, Nakhimov), and among artists (Pushkin, Repin, composers of the "mighty pile").
