The soviet myth of World War II : patriotic memory and the Russian question in the USSR / Jonathan Brunstedt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brunstedt, Jonathan, 1977- author.

Series:

Studies in the social and cultural history of modern warfare.

Studies in the social and cultural history of modern warfare

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

World War, 1939-1945--Soviet Union--Historiography.

World War, 1939-1945.

Patriotism--Soviet Union.

Patriotism.

Nationalism--Soviet Union.

Nationalism.

Soviet Union--Politics and government--1945-1991.

Soviet Union.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 306 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Summary:

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

Contents:

Introduction: war and the tensions of patriotism

Stalin's toast: victory and the vagaries of postwar Russocentrism

Victory days: the war theme in the Stalinist commemorative landscape

Usable pasts: the crisis of patriotism and the origins of the war cult

Monumental memory: patriotic identity in the high war cult

Patriotic wars: late-Soviet war memory and the politics of Russian nationalism.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 24 Jun 2021).

Current Copyright Fee: GBP25.00 0.

ISBN:

9781108595773 (electronic book)

1-108-58488-8

1-108-59577-4

OCLC:

1368216675