Associations of historians from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia have issued separate statements condemning the Russian aggression on Ukraine and expressing solidarity with the Ukrainians, stressing that Vladimir Putin's invasion was based on false historical assumptions and historical revisionism.

In a joint statement, the Croatian National Committee for Historical Science and the Society for Croatian History said that the aggression by the Vladimir Putin regime on Ukraine, a nation formed in the 19th century, was based on false historical assumptions challenging that nation’s right to independence, democratically elected government, and its own foreign political and security orientation.

Croatian historians firmly support the basic principles of democracy and the present international order, and respect every country’s right to freedom and autonomy in pursuing the interests of their people, the two associations said.

“Just as 30 years ago, in the case of the attempt to preserve Yugoslavia by force, we claimed that no state can be held together by force if that is opposed by its peoples, citizens, residents, so today we stress that no state must be violently subdued and destroyed,” they said.

The Sarajevo-based Association for Modern History said in a statement that everyone is witnessing the danger of historical revisionism, notably when used by powerful leaders like Putin, who justifies the invasion of Ukraine with a distorted picture of the Russian and Ukrainian history.

“We therefore call on historians to raise their voice against hate speech, abuse of history, and creation of a picture of the past in line with current political and military ambitions,” the association said.

The Belgrade-based Holocaust Research and Education Centre also condemned the aggression on Ukraine, expressing its opposition to abusing the memory of the crimes of Holocaust for war-mongering propaganda, using the term ‘de-Nazification’ as a justification for war and depicting the Ukrainian people as genocidal.

“We remind the public that Ukrainian citizens elected, in democratic and free presidential elections, by a clear majority of votes, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a Jewish man whose family members were scientists, Red Army members, and victims of the Holocaust,” the Centre said.

Regardless of the nature of problems involving actors of anti-Semitism in Ukraine, they were not very much different from similar organisations throughout the region, including Russia, and cannot serve as an excuse for a war of conquest. That war is a continuation of attempts to forcibly change history by annulling the sovereign will of neighbouring countries’ citizens, negating their national, cultural, religious and linguistic identity, and, ultimately, by committing mass crimes against civilians, the Centre said.

All those methods are common to a range of imperial, criminal policies, from nationalist to openly national-socialist, the Centre warned, calling for solidarity with victims of the aggression on Ukraine, as well as with refugees and victims of all wars.