Conference on Russia Papers

In the evolving post-Cold War order, Russian revanchism has emerged not merely as nostalgia for Soviet or tsarist legacies but as a neo-imperial project framed in narratives of historical injustice and civilisational mission. Since Crimea’s 2014 annexation and especially after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, it has shown overt disregard for smaller states’ sovereignty, notably in the Baltic region. Central to this agenda is the manipulation of historical memory, where anti-fascist rhetoric serves less as reckoning and more as a weapon to delegitimise states resisting Moscow’s influence. Recent monographs – History of Ukraine (2022) and History of Lithuania (2025) – illustrate this by presenting archival evidence while advancing state-aligned narratives that prioritise ideology over analysis. As Lithuania responds with heightened securitisation, the fusion of sponsored historiography, and weaponised identity politics reveals history’s role in geopolitical disruption. These trends signal a twenty-first-century recalibration of imperial influence, where the battle for meaning precedes that for territory. This article introduces Litvinism as a hybrid threat within the Kremlin’s memory wars, offering the first systematic analysis in English of how Russia weaponises medieval history to destabilise Baltic statehood.