ABSTRACT
This volume showcases important new research on World War II memory, both in the Soviet Union and in Russia today.
Through an examination of war remembrance in its various forms—official histories, school textbooks, museums, monuments, literature, films, and Victory Day parades—chapters illustrate how the heroic narrative of the war was established in Soviet times and how it continues to shape war memorialization under Putin. This war narrative resonates with the Russian population due to decades of Soviet commemoration, which continued virtually uninterrupted into the post-Soviet period. Major themes of the volume include the use of World War II memory for political legitimation and patriotic mobilization; the striking continuities between Soviet and post-Soviet commemorative practices; the place of Holocaust memorialization in contemporary Russia; Putin’s invocation of the war to bolster national pride and international prestige; and the relationship between individual memory and collective remembrance.
Authored by an international group of distinguished specialists, this collection is ideal for scholars of Russia across a range of disciplines, including history, political science, sociology, and cultural studies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |14 pages
Introduction
part I|116 pages
Soviet remembrance of the war
part II|116 pages
Soviet and post-Soviet war memory
chapter 9|27 pages
World War II memories and local media in the Russian North
part III|114 pages
Representations of the war in the Putin era