Oleg Platonov

Oleg Anatolyevich Platonov (Russian: Оле́г Анато́льевич Плато́нов; born 11 January 1950) is a Russian ultranationalist[1][2][3][4][5] writer and Holocaust denier.[6][7] He is the Director General of the Institute for the History of Russian Civilization, a Moscow-based think tank.[8] He is known for promoting the antisemitic conspiracy theory Judeo-Bolshevism, which claims that Jews were responsible for the Russian Revolution.

Biography

Platonov was born in Yekaterinburg, Russia, then known as Sverdlovsk. In 1972 he graduated from Moscow College of Consumer Cooperation. He worked in the international department of TsSU and, since 1977, in the Institute for Labor. In 1995 he organized a research institution Russian Civilization. He lived for seven months in the United States then returned to Russia. He published the encyclopedic dictionary Holy Rus and four volumes of The Great Encyclopedia of Russian People (out of a proposed twenty volumes), in which he praises the civilization of "Holy Rus'″ which, however, he claims has been undermined since the 17th century by various foreign elements ("чужебесия″) - forerunners of "Jewish-Masonic plotters" which he claims organized the Bolshevik Revolution.[9]

Although Platonov holds the Bolshevik regime responsible for 87 million lives, he argues Joseph Stalin made "the first step toward the salvation of Russia from Jewish Bolshevism.″[9]

Since 2003, Platonov's encyclopedia publishing center was transformed into the independent think tank 'Institute for the History of Russian Civilization' (short name 'Russian Institute'), whose goal is stated as research and dissemination of the ideas of Metropolitan Ioann of St Petersburg and Ladoga (né Ivan Snychev; 1927–1995)[10][11] with Platonov as the Institute's Director General.[8]

In his work The History of the Russian People in the Twentieth Century, Platonov treats the February and October revolutions of 1917 as handiwork of Judæo-Masonic conspirators, the agents of the Entente and of the German Empire. Similarly, he regards the leaders of Ukrainian and Baltic independence movements as spies and German agents.[12]

Holocaust denial

A publisher of the works of other Holocaust deniers, Platonov was described in 2009 as "the leading backer of Holocaust denial in Russia" by the historian Stephen E. Atkins.[7] Platonov was on the editorial advisory board of the denialist Journal of Historical Review before it closed in 2002, according to Atkins.[7]

Reception

The Russian human rights activist Alexander Brod,[13] writer and historian Semyon Reznik,[14] and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia[15] regard Platonov's works as antisemitic. Reznik also notes that Platonov is one of the main promoters of the blood libel.[16][17]

Works

  • Russia's Crown of Thorns: The Secret History of Freemasonry 1731-1996 (Moscow, 1996)
  • Еврейский вопрос в России (The Jewish Question in Russia; Moscow: Presskom, 2005); ISBN 5-98083-042-1
  • Why America is dying (Почему Погибнет Америка; Moscow, 2008); ISBN 978-5-98132-125-2

See also

References

  1. ^ "Intelligence Report". Splcenter.org. Archived from the original on 3 February 2010. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
  2. ^ "New York State Assembly : Dov Hikind". Assembly.state.ny.us. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
  3. ^ "AXT". Axt.org.uk. Archived from the original on 10 June 2011. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
  4. ^ "Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism". Archived from the original on 2008-09-14. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  5. ^ "CFCA - Russia- Antisemitic Literature on Sale Inside Russian Parliame…". Archived from the original on 23 July 2012.
  6. ^ Stella Rock (a research fellow at the University of Sussex) Russian revisionism: Holocaust denial and the new nationalist historiography, L'Association des Anciens Amateurs de Récits de Guerres et d'Holocaustes Archived 2009-05-02 at the Wayback Machine (initially presented at the one-day seminar, "Old prejudice—new agenda?", Centre for German-Jewish Studies, December 2000); retrieved 10 April 2009.
  7. ^ a b c Atkins, Stephen E.. (2009). Holocaust Denial as an International Movement. United Kingdom: ABC-CLIO. pp. 138, 165. ISBN 9780313345395.
  8. ^ a b "ОБ ИНСТИТУТЕ". Rusinst.ru. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
  9. ^ a b James H. Billington (19 March 2004). Russia in Search of Itself. Woodrow Wilson Center Press. pp. 85–. ISBN 978-0-8018-7976-0.
  10. ^ Ioann (Snychev) (1927-1995), Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga 1990-1995, The Encyclopedia of Saint Petersburg; retrieved 10 April 2009.
  11. ^ Ioann (Russian religious leader), Britannica Encyclopedia; retrieved 10 April 2009.
  12. ^ Brinks, Jan Herman; Timms, Edward; Rock, Stella (25 October 2017). Nationalist Myths and Modern Media: Cultural Identity in the Age of Globalisation. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 9781845110383. Retrieved 25 October 2017 – via Google Books.
  13. ^ "В России начали составлять список запрещенных книг". Newsru.com. 30 January 2006. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
  14. ^ "Reznik1". Berkovich-zametki.com. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
  15. ^ [1] Archived 2009-04-04 at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ Semyon Reznik,"The Nazification of Russia: Antisemitism in the Post-Soviet Era", Challenge Publications (VA) (December 1996), ISBN 0-9651360-8-6, ISBN 978-0-9651360-8-2
  17. ^ Hagemeister, Michael (2021-11-21). The Perennial Conspiracy Theory: Reflections on the History of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-53270-8.