Orange Plague”

World War II and the Symbolic Politics of Pro-state Mobilization in Putin’s Russia

Dados Bibliográficos

ID11047012
AutoresMatthew Luxmoore
Ano2019
Volume47
Fascículo5
Páginas822-839
Data de publicação2019-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoNationalities Papers (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0090-5992 • E-ISSN: 1465-3923
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/nps.2018.48
OpenAlexW2989786679
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas21

This article examines the symbolic politics of three pro-state movements that emerged from the “preventive counterrevolution” launched by the Kremlin in response to Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. In 2005, youth movement Nashi played upon war memory at its rallies and branded the opposition “fascist”; in 2012, the Anti-Orange Committee countered opposition protests with mass gatherings at Moscow’s war commemoration sites; in 2015, Antimaidan brought thousands onto Russia’s streets to denounce US-backed regime change and alleged neo-Nazism in Kiev. I show how evocation of the enemy image, through reference to the war experience, played a key role in the symbolism of the preventive counterrevolution. Interviews with activists in these movements discussing their symbolic politics reveal an opposing victim/victor narrative based on an interplay of two World War II myths—the “Great Victory” and the “fascist threat.” Moving beyond approaches that view the Soviet and Russian World War II cult as a triumphalist narrative of the Great Victory over fascism, I conclude that its threat component is an understudied element

Art · Economic history · Literature · Narrative · Nazism · Opposition (politics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Victory · World War II · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration