Patriotic Russian poems turn out to be Nazi poetry
Poems in Honor of Putin or as Praise for Soldiers: Nationalistic, war-glorifying works are popular in Russia. This was also the case for the poetry of Gennadi Rakitin. Now it has been revealed: He was invented, his poems were translations from National Socialism.
The attack on Ukraine brought a whole wave of patriotic propaganda in Russia. The letter "Z", which adorned the military vehicles of some units, quickly became a symbol for the aggression towards the neighboring country. This was not only accompanied by historically distorted speeches by Putin. Many ordinary citizens, both men and women, have presented themselves as particularly nationalistic for more than two years.
This applies to artists and poets who gladly joined the war enthusiasm. One of them seemed to be Gennadi Rakitin, a Russian poet born in 1975, who emerged on the VKontakte network with patriotic poems. His following grew rapidly, and soon there were hundreds of deputies in the Duma and dozens of senators among his followers. Rakitin was celebrated.
Since summer 2023, he published a total of 18 poems, which were often also widely disseminated. Sometimes it's about the great leader Putin, sometimes about the enthusiasm for the special operation - as the Kremlin calls the aggression war. The poems are called "Leader" (Leader) or "Anonymous Soldier of the PMC" - meant are soldiers of the Wagner Group.
But now the poems are over, because: Rakitin doesn't exist. He never did. He is an invention of several anti-war activists. They not only invented for their puppet a study at the famous Lomonosov University in Moscow and a job as a school principal. They also stole his name, from "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky. And they created portraits using Artificial Intelligence. A man with wrinkles on his face, gray hair, a mustache, standing in the wilderness - that's how they probably imagine a particularly patriotic poet.
The real twist, however, is something else: The poems that Rakitin published actually exist. But they were originally written in German, in the 30s and 40s. They are works by National Socialist poets like Eberhard Möller and Herbert Menzel. The activists translated them into Russian and slightly adapted them. From "Führer" they made "Leader", from an SA man a Wagner soldier.
They had read patriotic poem collections and discovered "bare Nazism" in them, the activists told The Guardian in a written interview. "We suspected that they had probably written the same thing in Nazi Germany, and it turned out that we were right."
Almost all the poems they discovered had perfectly fit the current Russian context, the activists added. "Politically, the ideas of National Socialist Germany and those of modern Russia are very close, even if Russia claims to be fighting National Socialism," it says. In cultural terms, it shows that there is no Russian cultural renaissance, but only its decline. The group intends to remain anonymous for security reasons.
- The revelation of Gennadi Rakitin's fictitious identity as a Russian poet has shed light on the prevalence of right-wing extremist ideologies in Russia, as his popular poems were found to be translations of National Socialist works from the 1930s and 40s.
- The use of propaganda in politics, especially during the attack on Ukraine, has led to an increase in nationalistic sentiment among Russians, including politicians who have openly endorsed such ideologies.
- The discovery of National Socialist propaganda disguised as patriotic poetry in Russia raises concerns about the country's influence and alignment with extremist political ideologies, such as those espoused by Putin's regime.
