The Soviet Myth of World War II

Patriotic Memory and the Russian Question in the USSR

Bibliographic Data

ID19920353
AuthorsJonathan Brunstedt (Mitchell Institute, corresponding author)
Year2021
Publication date2021-06-30
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueSoviet Myth of World War II (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/9781108595773
OpenAlexW4243041654
Open LibraryOL35858143M
ISBN9781108595773
LanguageEN
Citations received7

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 exceptionalism and Russian-led 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

Homeland · Internationalism (politics) · Mythology · Patriotism · Political science · Politics · Victory · World War II · Classics · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law · Soviet and Russian History · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies · 1939-1945 · Collective memory · Historiography · Influence · Nationalism · politics and government · War and society · World history · World War

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