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The Myth and Memory of WWII in the Soviet Union and the New Russia

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The Myth and Memory of WWII in the Soviet Union and the New Russia W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 4-2012 From the Trenches of Stalingrad to the Digital Front: The Myth and Memory of WWII in the Soviet Union and the New Russia Jacob Evan Lassin College of William and Mary Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Part of the Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies Commons Recommended Citation Lassin, Jacob Evan, "From the Trenches of Stalingrad to the Digital Front: The Myth and Memory of WWII in the Soviet Union and the New Russia" (2012). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 556. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/556 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 From the Trenches of Stalingrad to the Digital Front: The Myth and Memory of WWII in the Soviet Union and the New Russia A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies from The College of William and Mary by Jacob Evan Lassin Accepted for ___________________________________ (Honors, High Honors, Highest Honors) ____________________________________ Elena Prokhorova , Director ________________________________________ Bruce Campbell ________________________________________ Frederick Corney ____________________________ Alexander Prokhorov Williamsburg, VA April 24, 2012 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..3 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..4 Chapter 1: The Evolution of the War Myth in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Russia.........................................................................................................7 Stalin’s Approach to Telling the War……………………………………………..7 The “Canonical” War Myth of the 1960s-70s…………………………………...15 Perestroika and the De-Mythologizing of WWII………………………………..26 The 1990s and the Emergence of the New Russian Patriotism………………….30 Chapter 2: Putin and the Memory of World War II……………………………………...34 The 60 th Anniversary of Victory Day……………………………………………36 The Bronze Soldier of Tallinn and the Russian Outrage………………………...39 The Campaign against Historical Falsification under Medvedev……………….41 Propagation of the War Myth on the Web……………………………………….44 Chapter 3: A Case Study of Iremember.ru……………………………………………….48 Soviet (Internationalist) Rhetoric in the Russian (Nationalist) Present………….51 Speaking of the Nation through a Global Medium………………………………52 How the Discourse Remains the Same…………………………………………..54 Interview Questions……………………………………………………………...56 Pre-War Life……………………………………………………………………..63 Stalin and Other Omissions……………………………………………………...67 Wall of Shame and User Comments…………………………………………….74 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….81 Appendix A: Table of Contents of The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 1941-1945. A Short History ...............................................................................................84 Appendix B: A Sample of Questions Prepared for Soldatskie memuary by Konstantin Simonov………………………………………………………………….87 Appendix C: Questions for Oral History Interviews on Iremember.ru………………….89 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………...91 3 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people for all of their help during the writing of this thesis: My parents, brother, family, and friends for their support throughout my college experience and especially in the process of writing this year, Frederick Corney and Alexander Prokhorov for their classes which have driven my curiosity in learning more about Russia and exploring some of the fundamental questions of this thesis, their mentorship in my research, and taking time to serve on my thesis committee, Bruce Campbell for both his helpful critiques on an earlier draft of this thesis and his willingness to serve on my thesis committee from across the Atlantic, making it a truly transnational undertaking, Elena Prokhorova, my thesis adviser, for enthusiastically receiving my interests in new media and directing them towards looking critically at the WWII myth and for all of the time and effort spent on this thesis, which would not have been possible without her guidance. Finally, I would like to dedicate this thesis to the memories of my grandfathers, Leonard Lassin and Stephen Franzman, who always encouraged me to keep asking questions. 4 Introduction This thesis examines the evolution of the mythology and memory of WWII in Russia, with a focus on the appropriation of the war narrative by Putin’s state and the uses of war memory on state-controlled Russian internet sites. World War II has been one of the foundational narratives of modern Russian identity, inextricably linked to the evaluation of the nation’s past and central to its present-day struggle for self-definition, in both the political and the symbolic dimensions. Two concepts are central for the methodology of this study: “myth” and “memory.” The myth of World War II in the Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia stands as the foundational story from which the state derives much of its legitimacy and from which the Russian people gain a sense of identity, both communal and individual. In my understanding of myth I follow Peter Burke who argues that myth should be approached “not in the positivist sense of ‘inaccurate history’ but in the richer, more positive sense of a story with symbolic meaning made up of stereotyped incidents and involving characters who are larger than life, whether they are heroes or villains” (103-104). For my approach to World War II mythology I use Frederick Corney’s study Telling October: Memory and the Making of the Bolshevik Revolution , which examines the narrativization of the October Revolution. Corney writes that “foundation myths are only successful insofar as they are able to implicate the individual in the tale” (1). In the case of the memory of the World War II in Russia this “implication” has been accomplished almost totally with personal memories becoming subsumed in the official narrative of the war. Underlying the entire act of remembering is the notion that “one only ever remembers as a member of a social group” (Wachtel 211). This key concept is especially 5 important to keep in mind when discussing the Soviet Union’s and the Russian Federation’s approaches to telling the war myth. Up until the late 1980s, the state had a complete monopoly on all mass media discourses which determined how the memory of World War II was transmitted and commemorated. Thus, part and parcel of the evolution of the remembering of such events as the war are what Alon Confino calls “vehicles of memory”: books, songs, films, official speeches, monuments, and in the twenty first century, Internet sites (1386). In Chapter 1, I chart the history of the war narrative starting with the immediate responses and commemorations during the war and early post-war celebrations and extending through the end of the Stalinist period. I then explore in greater detail the ways in which the war myth evolved during the Stagnation era of the late 1960s to early 1980s. It is during this time period when the myth crystallizes and becomes, to many subsequent generations, the telling of the war, which continues to inspire celebrations and remembrances of the war today. The myth then becomes the object of much scrutiny and debate during the latter days of the Soviet Union and the 1990s. Chapter 2 discusses the revival of WWII mythology under the Putin/Medvedev administrations for the purposes of serving a new state, regime, and ideology. I look at three instances of the Russian state using the symbolic capital of the war myth to project an internal and external image of the Russian Federation as the strong, legitimate heir to the great past, before focusing on the advantages and challenges that the Internet offers to such traditional mythologyIn Chapter 3, I examine Iremember.ru, a website funded by Rospechat’, the Russian state ministry of publishing, which contains oral history interviews with Soviet war veterans as well as user generated material and comments. In 6 this chapter I am especially interested in how, on the one hand, the war mythology adjusts to the transnational and participatory medium of the Internet, which maintains a plethora of information and opinions concerning World War II and on the other, offers new opportunities and challenges for such inherited mythologies. Both the new medium and the new cultural environment necessitate a modified version of the war myth, which (re)-constructs the war as an epic, identity-forging event while making it appealing both to younger, nationalist Russian users and “palatable” to non-Russian, Western audiences. I attempt to explain how the state, through its funding of the site, controls how the war myth is presented, and look at how the veterans’ individual memories corroborate or digress from the “official” telling of the war. The ultimate goal of this thesis is to describe the uses of the war mythology in contemporary Russia and to get an insight into the formation of the new Russian identity. 7 Chapter 1: The Evolution of the War Myth in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Russia Stalin’s Approach to Telling the War For Russians and other populations who lived and were reared under Soviet rule, World War II was an event of mythic proportions, both as the greatest
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