Keeping memory alive. Defending historical truth

It may sound ambitious at first, but the International Immortal Regiment movement is in fact doing everything it can to stop a Third World War — a war that could turn nuclear and simply devastating for humankind. The work of the movement matters not only to the peoples of the former Soviet Union, but to all of humanity. In that sense, everyone who makes even the smallest contribution to the movement also helps to save humanity from a third world war.

The Immortal Regiment is not only the march on 9 May in memory of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers who fought against Nazism, and in memory of the fallen soldiers who gave their lives fighting present-day Nazism. It is also a set of projects devoted to preserving historical truth and resisting the falsification of history. It is a project of international cultural exchange and of keeping family values alive. The movement stands as a symbol of the victory of all the Soviet peoples over fascism.

Today it is especially important to defend historical truth and to fight for it. In recent years a great deal of money has been spent on rewriting the history of our forebears — history that happened not thousands of years ago but roughly 80 years ago, and eyewitnesses to it are still alive. Today a new generation in Western European countries seems to have forgotten who liberated them. More than 27 million Soviet citizens died in the fight against fascism. The aim of the International Immortal Regiment movement is to refresh humanity's memory: that humanity was saved from fascism and that Europe was liberated.

When you let others falsify the history of your people or your country, it leads to new wars and new disasters. That is exactly what has caused today's suffering. We do not take many things seriously, we attach no weight to them. Yet they matter. Elites in various countries try to falsify history, to make their own people forget what really happened, they dismantle monuments and rewrite history textbooks. By ignoring these processes we find ourselves once again on the brink of war. Had historical truth prevailed, there would be no war today.

In many countries people are put under pressure not to take part in the 9 May march and in the Victory Day commemorations. And yet they take part. The movement does everything it can to protect these ideas and these people, and to bring in more participants, young people above all, so that no one can rewrite history and push humanity to the edge of new wars.

Mher Avetisyan

General Coordinator of the International Immortal Regiment