Identity Is Wholly a Function of Stories

What Ruschia noticed was that community identity is wholly formed through story-telling. The modern nation state was created after Herder’s 1777 plea to unite the 10 German tribes behind a set of stories (folklore or more accurately folksongs) typifying Germanness. The Brothers Grimm, Goethe and later Wagner answered that call. And 90 years later the first unified German state was created. Identity is wholly a function of stories. Know this, and you will begin to understand how Ruschist Disinfolklore works to undermine and recreate identity.

Source: Twitter Note (February 2025, Munich Security Conference)

This is the pivotal insight: if identity is made through story-telling, then identity can also be unmade and remade through story-telling. Russia understood this and built an industrial apparatus to exploit it.

← Bodies Cut Into Pieces | Back to Folklore Origins | The Dark Turn: Folklore as Weapon → | Next: The Dark Turn: Folklore as Weapon →