Ao contrário de 1945, hoje Europa e EUA tentam minimizar papel da Rússia na 2a Guerra Mundial.
It's a rare thing to behold: an accurate - in fact, a rather glowing - portrayal of Russia and its historical role as shock absorber to invading hordes. The film was recently uploaded to the YouTube channel of the US National Archives but, as far as I can make out, has been publicly available since 2011. While the bulk of the film uses contemporary footage collected by US Army Intelligence during the war to capture the horror, scale and intensity of the Nazi invasion of Russia, and how the Russians ultimately defeated the Nazis through brilliant strategy and sheer force of will, the first part also goes into some historical context about previous invasions of Russia, as well as important geographical detail about the nature of 'Russia'. Here's the film:
At one point, for example, the narrator mentions in passing that Russia was victim to Kaiser Wilhelm's 'tyrannical warmongering' in the early 20th century. I can tell you, with some certainty, having recently read Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War, that Germany was not at fault for WW1 (in fact, it tried to prevent it). Nevertheless, Hitler's Operation Barbarossa in 1941 does fit a pattern of Russia historically being on the receiving end of aggressive invasions. For just a brief sliver in time, it was apparently in the US government's interests to accurately represent the 'most epic battlefront in known history'. Not only that, it also suited US interests to accurately represent Russia as a large 'community of nations'. And that, essentially, is what defines her (both Imperial Russia and the USSR); Russia is a patchwork 'country of many countries', a vast territory comprising many ethnicities and nationalities.
