Historical negationism in the context of Holodomor denial

Holocaust denial is the negationist and antisemitic claim that Nazi Germany and its collaborators did not commit genocide against European Jews during World War II, ignoring overwhelming historical evidence to the contrary. Theories assert that the genocide of Jews is a fabrication or exaggeration. Holocaust denial includes making one or more of the following false claims: that Nazi Germany's "Final Solution" was aimed only at deporting Jews from the territory of the Third Reich and did not include their extermination; that Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas chambers for the mass murder of Jews; that the actual number of Jews murdered is significantly lower than the accepted figure of approximately six million; and that the Holocaust is a hoax perpetrated by the Allies, Jews, or the Soviet Union.

Holocaust denial has roots in postwar Europe, beginning with writers such as Maurice Bardèche and Paul Rassinier. In the United States, the Institute for Historical Review gave Holocaust denial a pseudo-scholarly platform and helped spread it globally. In the Islamic world, Holocaust denial has been used to delegitimize Israel; deniers portray the Holocaust as a fabrication to justify the creation of a Jewish state. Iran is the leading state sponsor, embedding Holocaust denial into its official ideology through state-backed conferences and cartoon contests. In former Eastern Bloc countries, deniers do not deny the mass murder of Jews but deny the participation of their own nationals.

The most common name for the American Civil War in modern American usage is simply "The Civil War". Although rarely used during the war, the term "War Between the States" became widespread afterward in the Southern United States. During and immediately after the war, Northern historians often used the terms "War of the Rebellion" and "Great Rebellion", and the Confederate term was "War for Southern Independence", which regained some currency in the 20th century but has again fallen out of use. The name "Slaveholders' Rebellion" was used by Frederick Douglass and appeared in newspaper articles during that era. "Freedom War" is used to celebrate the war's effect of ending slavery.

During the Jim Crow era of the 1950s, the term "War of Northern Aggression" developed under the Lost Cause of the Confederacy movement by Southern historical revisionists or negationists. This label was coined by segregationists in an effort to equate contemporary efforts to end segregation with 19th-century efforts to abolish slavery.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (also published as 1984) is a dystopian novel by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final completed book. Thematically, it centres on totalitarianism, mass surveillance and repressive regimentation of people and behaviours.

The story takes place in a fictional future. The current year is uncertain, but believed to be 1984. Much of the world is in perpetual war. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, has become a province of the totalitarian superstate Oceania, which is led by Big Brother, a dictatorial leader supported by an intense cult of personality manufactured by the Party's Thought Police. The Party engages in omnipresent government surveillance and, through the Ministry of Truth, historical negationism and constant propaganda to persecute individuality and independent thinking. Orwell described his book as a "satire", and a display of the "perversions to which a centralised economy is liable", while also stating he believed "that something resembling it could arrive". The novel examines the role of truth and facts within societies and the ways in which they can be manipulated. Parallels have been drawn between the novel and real-world totalitarianism, mass surveillance and violations of freedom of expression, among other themes.

Neo-Nazism comprises all social, political, and militant ideologies and movements that have professed or idealized Nazism, whether in whole or in part, since the end of World War II in 1945. Neo-Nazi individuals and organizations employ their ideology to promote what they perceive as the racial or ethnic supremacy (often White supremacy) of their own group; to incite or engage in hatred or discrimination against demographic minorities (often antisemitism and Islamophobia); and, in some cases, to establish a fascist state (e.g., "Fourth Reich"). Also common in neo-Nazi circles is engagement in historical negationism and propagation of conspiracy theories—not limited to absolving or glorifying the Nazi Party or those who inspired or are thought to have inspired Adolf Hitler and other prominent Nazi figures—such as Holocaust denial and Jewish war; White genocide and Great Replacement; and "cultural" Marxism.

While mainly concentrated in the Western world, neo-Nazism is a global phenomenon and has organized representation in several international networks. However, it is not exclusive to people of European origin—many similar supremacist movements among local racial or ethnic groups in non-Western regions have been observed adhering to tenets of or inspired by neo-Nazi ideology. Much of this manifests in adopting original Nazi ideological doctrine and practices, including racism, ultra-nationalism, ableism, homophobia, and conspiratorial anti-communism, among others.

Revisionism may refer to:

• Historical revisionism, the critical re-examination of presumed historical facts and existing historiography
  • The "revisionists" school of thought in Soviet and Communist studies, as opposed to the Cold War "traditionalists" school
  • Historical negationism, concerted denial of claims accepted by mainstream historians, may purport to be historical revisionism but its methodologies have no basis in historiography/profession of history
  • Revisionist school of Islamic studies, which questions whether the traditional accounts about Islam's early times are reliable historical sources
• Fictional revisionism, the retelling of a story with substantial alterations in character or environment, to "revise" the view shown in the original work
• Marxist revisionism, a pejorative term used by some Marxists to describe ideas based on a revision of fundamental Marxist premises
• Revisionism (Ireland), an issue in Irish historiography
• Revisionism (Spain), a derogatory term used in Spanish historiographic debate
• Revisionism theory, another word for reformism
• Revisionist Zionism, a nationalist faction within the Zionist movement
• Territorial revisionism, a euphemism for revanchism or irredentism
• The reevaluation of one's experiences with a hindsight bias

The Act on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (Polish: Ustawy o Instytucie Pamięci Narodowej - Komisji Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu) is a 1998 Polish law that created the Institute of National Remembrance. This memory law was amended twice, in 2007 and 2018.

The 1998 Act's Article 55 criminalized historical negationism of crimes committed against Poles or Polish citizens by Nazi or communist polities; of crimes against peace or humanity; of war crimes; and of political repression—all these being listed in Sections 1 a and 1 b of Article 1. While Holocaust denial was not explicitly mentioned, it is understood to be implicity criminalized.

Conservatism in Japan (Japanese: 保守主義, romanized: hoshu shugi) is the dominant ideology of the country's post-war politics, notably through the establishment of the "1955 System" under the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Since its inception in 1955, the LDP has been a dominant force in Japanese politics, embodying the party's conservative policies and shaping the country's governance for much of the post-war era.

Mainstream contemporary Japanese conservatives largely believe in stances such as revising the Constitution and a pro-United States foreign policy, while some hold positions including calls for remilitarization and a stronger foreign policy against communist North Korea and China and sometimes South Korea and Russia. Additionally, radical conservatives express anti-LGBT and anti-immigration sentiments as well as engaging in denial of Japanese war crimes prior to and during World War II.

In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account. It involves challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) scholarly views or narratives regarding a historical event, timespan, or phenomenon by introducing contrary evidence or reinterpreting the motivations of the people involved. Revision of the historical record can reflect new discoveries of fact, evidence, and interpretation as they come to light. The process of historical revision is a common, necessary, and usually uncontroversial process which develops and refines the historical record to make it more complete and accurate.

One form of historical revisionism involves denying the moral significance or accuracy of the historical record. This type of historical revisionism is called historical negationism, and is contentious as it often includes denying the veracity of genuine documents, or deliberately manipulating statistical data to reach predetermined conclusions. The destruction or alteration of cultural heritage sites is also considered a form of illegitimate historical revisionism when it serves to deny the cultural or historical claims of ethnic groups. Negationists may use the term "revisionism" to portray their pseudoscholarship as legitimate, especially in the context of genocide denial.

Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research. The related term cryptohistory is applied to pseudohistory derived from the superstitions intrinsic to occultism. Pseudohistory is related to pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology, and usage of the terms may occasionally overlap.

Although pseudohistory comes in many forms, scholars have identified common features in pseudohistorical works. Pseudohistory is almost always motivated by a contemporary political, religious, or personal agenda. It frequently presents sensational claims or a big lie about historical facts which would require unwarranted revision of the historical record. Another hallmark is an underlying premise that powerful groups have a furtive agenda to suppress the promoter's thesis—a premise commonly corroborated by elaborate conspiracy theories. Works of pseudohistory often point exclusively to unreliable sources—including myths and legends, often treated as literal historical truth—to support the thesis being promoted while ignoring valid sources that contradict it. Some works adopt a position of historical relativism, insisting that there is no such thing as historical truth and that any hypothesis is equal to any other. Many works conflate mere possibility with actuality, assuming that if something could have happened, then it did.