British academics protest after Russia closes down history website
Move reflects official efforts to rewrite Stalin's role and to cover up Nazi-Soviet pact.
A group of British academics including the historian Orlando Figes and the poet and translator Robert Chandler have spoken out after authorities in Russia closed down a website dealing with the country's controversial Soviet past.
On 19 June the home affairs ministry in St Petersburg shut down the site www.hrono.info. The website had been Russia's largest online history resource, widely used by scholars in Russia and elsewhere as a unique source of biographical and historical material.
Officials said they closed the site because it published extracts from Hitler's autobiography, Mein Kampf. Today, however, its founder, Vyacheslav Rumyantsev, said the closure had nothing to do with Hitler, adding that the text was widely available elsewhere and was only summarised on the site.
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A group of British academics including the historian Orlando Figes and the poet and translator Robert Chandler have spoken out after authorities in Russia closed down a website dealing with the country's controversial Soviet past.
On 19 June the home affairs ministry in St Petersburg shut down the site www.hrono.info. The website had been Russia's largest online history resource, widely used by scholars in Russia and elsewhere as a unique source of biographical and historical material.
Officials said they closed the site because it published extracts from Hitler's autobiography, Mein Kampf. Today, however, its founder, Vyacheslav Rumyantsev, said the closure had nothing to do with Hitler, adding that the text was widely available elsewhere and was only summarised on the site.