Many Narratives or a Single Voice? The Role of Historical Policy in EU–Russia Relations
Many Narratives or a Single Voice? The Role of Historical Policy in EU–Russia Relations

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of the article is to analyze the process of change in Russian historical policy from a foreign policy perspective. The article hypothesizes that historical policy can be considered as an indicator of changes in Russia’s foreign policy, allowing us to infer the direction of its future development, playing both an ‘integrative’ and ‘disintegrative’ role. Using the example of the EU, the impact of Russia’s historical policy on the EU’s historical narrative is examined. While in the analyzed context the new Russian historical narrative signaled a growing distrust and a more confrontational stance towards the EU (a disintegrative role), its unintended side effect was the construction of a common European historical narrative (an integrative role) pushed by the Central and Eastern European states in response to Russia’s aggressive rhetoric on historical issues, the interpretation of which few years earlier had divided the ‘old’ and ‘new’ member states.

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