Most authoritarian regimes and populist parties today claim they are committed to democratic values. On the one hand, this testifies to a world-wide triumph of democracy. On the other, however, the use of democratic concepts and symbols by the authoritarians and populists is no innocent operation. It depreciates these concepts and symbols and transforms them into empty signs. In which ways does Putin’s propaganda deprive notions and symbols of the democratic culture of memory of their true sense and transform them into empty signs?