The Soviet Myth of World War II
Patriotic Memory and the Russian Question in the USSR

Provides a bold new interpretation of the origins and development of World War II's remembrance in the USSR.

Jonathan Brunstedt (Author)

9781108712552, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 4 July 2024

324 pages
22.9 x 15 x 1.8 cm, 0.47 kg

'… examines the technologies and mechanisms of cultural management and myth-making used by Soviet elites to create a common (supra)national identity for which the Great Patriotic War became a unifying factor … Jonathan Brunstedt's research not only enriches our understanding of Soviet memory of the war, but also contributes to the debate about Russian nationalism and internationalism in the USSR, and the various goals and objectives of Soviet and Russocentric narratives. The book will be of interest to researchers of Soviet history dealing with issues of war memory, national politics and the preservation of historical heritage.' Roman Lyalin, Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research

How did a socialist society, ostensibly committed to Marxist ideals of internationalism and global class struggle, reconcile itself to notions of patriotism, homeland, Russian ethnocentrism, and the glorification of war? In this provocative new history, Jonathan Brunstedt pursues this question through the lens of the myth and remembrance of victory in World War II – arguably the central defining event of the Soviet epoch. The book shows that while the experience and legacy of the conflict did much to reinforce a sense of Russian primacy and Russian-dominated ethnic hierarchy, the story of the war enabled an alternative, supra-ethnic source of belonging, which subsumed Russian and non-Russian loyalties alike to the Soviet whole. The tension and competition between Russocentric and 'internationalist' conceptions of victory, which burst into the open during the late 1980s, reflected a wider struggle over the nature of patriotic identity in a multiethnic society that continues to reverberate in the post-Soviet space. The book sheds new light on long-standing questions linked to the politics of remembrance and provides a crucial historical context for the patriotic revival of the war's memory in Russia today.

List of Figures
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Maps
Introduction: War and the Tensions of Patriotism
1. Stalin's Toast: Victory and the Vagaries of Postwar Russocentrism
2. Victory Days: The War Theme in the Stalinist Commemorative Landscape
3. Usable Pasts: The Crisis of Patriotism and the Origins of the War Cult
4. Monumental Memory: Patriotic Identity in the High War Cult
5. Patriotic Wars: Late-Soviet War Memory and the Politics of Russian Nationalism
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Second World War [HBWQ], Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3], European history [HBJD]