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Soviet historiography is the study of the study of history in Soviet Union and its sphere of influence (see Eastern bloc). Differently from history research in democratic countries, in Soviet Union, the state-approved history was openly subjected to politics and propaganda (see also agitprop). These trends have been brilliantly analysed by George Orwell in his classic work, Nineteen Eighty-Four (see also Ministry of Truth).

Translations of foreign historiography were often produced in a truncated form, accompanied with extensive corrective footnotes. E.g. in the Russian 1976 translation of Basil Liddell Hart's History of the Second World War pre-war purges of Red Army officers, secret protocol to theMolotov-Ribbentrop Pact, many details of the Winter War, occupation of Baltic states, Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, Allied assistance to the Soviet Union during the war, many other Western Alles' efforts, the Soviet leadership's mistakes and failures, criticism of the Soviet Union and other content were censored out.

References

1. Lewis, B. E. (1977). Soviet Taboo. Review of Vtoraya Mirovaya Voina, History of the Second World War by B. Liddel Gart (Russian translation). Soviet Studies 29 (4), 603-606.

Sources and further reading

• Lietuvos istorijos metraštis: From sovietology to Soviet history: three trends in Western historiography by Dalia Marcinkevičienė
• National Review January 18, 1993: Soviet historiography, western journalism — western journalists slow to report General Dmitri Volkogonov's explanation of his exoneration of convicted spy Alger Hiss by Amos Perlmutter

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