Mher Avetisyan, General Coordinator of the International Immortal Regiment movement, on the mission of the Movement: to stop the third world war
The Immortal Regiment is not only a march of people 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 in the struggle against present-day Nazism. It is also a set of projects aimed at preserving historical truth and resisting the falsification of history. It is a project devoted to international cultural exchange and to keeping family values alive. The movement is a symbol of the Victory of all the Soviet peoples over fascism.
Today it is especially important to defend and to fight for historical truth. In recent years a great deal of money has been spent on rewriting the history of our forebears - a history that took place not thousands of years ago but some 80 years ago, and whose witnesses and eyewitnesses are still alive. Today the new generation in Western European countries appears to have forgotten who liberated them. More than 27 million Soviet citizens died in the struggle against fascism. The aim of the international Immortal Regiment movement is to renew 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 become the cause of today's suffering. There is much we do not take seriously, much to which we attach no importance. Yet in truth it matters. The elites of various countries are trying to falsify history and to make their own people forget historical reality; 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.
At first glance it may sound ambitious, but the International Immortal Regiment movement is in fact doing everything it can to stop a Third World War - one that could turn nuclear and simply destroy humanity. The movement's work matters not only to the post-Soviet peoples, but to all of humanity. In that sense, everyone who makes even the smallest contribution to the work of the Movement is, through that contribution, also helping to save humanity from a third world war.
In many countries people are put under pressure not to take part in the march on 9 May or in the Victory Day commemorations. And still they come. The Movement does everything in its power to protect these ideas and these people, and to bring more participants into the movement - young people above all - so that the authorities in Europe have no chance to substitute a false history and to push humanity towards new wars.
