ABSTRACT
The celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of victory in the Second World War could not have come at a more opportune moment for Vladimir Putin. It coincided with a number of trends: (1) Putin’s efforts to foster a culture of national unity (the political party most closely associated with Putin is called One Russia) and pride in Russian military achievements, past and present; (2) Russia’s newfound confidence on the international stage; (3) the reassertion of Great Russian patriotism in the context of the rehabilitation of selected aspects of the Soviet imperial past (a process inaugurated a year earlier in Putin’s post-Beslan address to the nation)1; (4) the attempt, by finding common cause with old war allies in the new global ‘war on terror’, to legitimate Russia’s actions in Chechnya; and (5) the achievement of effective control over the media.
