Falsification of history

Falsifying history is one of the widespread propaganda methods when, in order to achieve political goals, an interested party denies historical facts and revises the past. To this end, historical documents, statistics and sources are falsified while questionable sources are presented as legitimate. The goals of manipulating history are mostly political – mobilization of the public, creation of the image of the enemy, demonization of the adversary, creation of the illusion of power and others. Academics call this method “negationism”, “denialism” and “revisionism”.

Historical revisionism (negationism)


Denying or justifying crimes committed by authoritarian regimes


Idealizing/romanticizing dictators and authoritarian regimes


Stirring up historical traumas


Evoking nostalgia for the past


How to identify and verify the cases of falsified history