By Véronique Gazeau and Alexandre Musin

In May 15th 2009, the President of Russia instructed the founding of a ‘presidential commission of fight against attempts of falsification of history concerning Russia’. If this commission was primarily founded against attempts to re-read the history of the Second World War, it also bears some threats for the history of Middle Ages. Two months later one of the active members of this Commission, Director of the Institute of Russian History of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Andreï Sakharov, member by correspondence of the Academy of Sciences of Russia, in his interview on the Russian TV1 announced that, among the modern falsifications, one of the most threatening medieval untruths is Normannism, which ‘to-day is rearing its head again’. He thinks that a new wind of Normannism is blowing in Russia which is inspired by foreign organizations and institutions that finance the ‘destructive activities’ of some Russian scholars and centers of research.

Last May 15, a decree issued by the President of the Russian Federation set up a “Commission for contrasting the attempts of history forgery against Russian interests”.

Last June 23, V. A. Tiškov, “Vice Secretary Academician, Section of Historical and Philological Science of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Director of the ARS History Section”, signed a memorandum in pursuance of such decree.