A Ponzi Scheme of Historical Authority
LGGRTC nominated its own acting Director General, supplied his biographical case, and then circulated PEMC-labeled praise without disclosing that the nomination came from LGGRTC itself.
On September 3, I published Did PEMC Check the History?. I asked who had nominated Arūnas Bubnys for the 2026 Prize of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience and what its voters had been given about the historical record attached to his state service. Later that day, Eugene J. Levin published PEMC May Reward the Method It Exists to Oppose.
The next day PEMC supplied the missing fact. Its Managing Director wrote to me: “Here, I can confirm that Arunas Bubnys was nominated by LGGRTC.”
LGGRTC is the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania. Bubnys is its acting Director General. The Seimas appointed him on April 22, 2021 for a five-year term. After that term expired, LGGRTC itself described him as acting Director General in May 2026 and again in July 2026. Its September prize promotion reverted to the unqualified title “Director General.” He headed LGGRTC’s research department from 2009 until April 2021 before becoming institutional head.
The August 18 BNS report carried by LRT says LGGRTC announced the nomination but does not identify the nominator. It then attributes an assessment of Bubnys to a “candidate overview prepared by the Platform.” The overview praises more than forty years of research, archival work and state service and says his work contributes to society’s ability to recognize distortions of historical truth.
LGGRTC’s own public page repeats the same presentation. It quotes the Platform-prepared overview and does not tell readers that LGGRTC itself submitted the nomination. That presentation is deceptive in architecture: LGGRTC places PEMC’s name over praise produced from a candidacy LGGRTC itself originated, while the originating institution disappears from the public story.
The endorsement started inside LGGRTC
PEMC’s September 4 email explains the procedure. Member organizations formally submit their candidate and biographical information. LGGRTC submitted Bubnys. The same email says: “We do not limit our member organisations in any way regarding the candidates they propose.”
LGGRTC submitted its own acting Director General and the biographical case for him. PEMC prepared a candidate overview within that process. LGGRTC then cited the Platform-prepared overview in its public announcement. BNS and LRT carried the Platform-labeled praise as a European nomination story.
The nomination file has not been published. LGGRTC and PEMC can publish it. Until they do, I cannot say whether the exact sentence about recognizing “distortions of historical truth” was written verbatim by LGGRTC or........
