Making Sense of World War II: How Russian and Ukrainian Textbooks Foster National Identities

7 EU-RUSSIA PAPER • JANUARY 2013 Making Sense of World War II: How Russian and Ukrainian Textbooks Foster National Identities CEURUS Lina KLYMENKO Karelian Institute University of Eastern Finland The Centre for EU-Russia Studies (CEURUS) is a multidisciplinary centre for research and teaching at the University of Tartu, Estonia. It serves as a contact point for scholars, students and experts who share an interest in the evolving relationship between the European Union and the Russian Federation. CEURUS coordinates and sponsors a variety of activities related to research, teaching and public out- reach in the area of EU-Russia relations. For more information, see http://ceurus.ut.ee The Centre for EU-Russia Studies undertakes quality control in editing its publications. However, the opinions expressed in the Centre’s publications are those of the authors and contributors, and do not necessarily refl ect those of CEURUS, the University of Tartu or the organization to which the authors are affi liated. Published articles may be works in progress and CEURUS will not prevent their subsequent publication in an academic journal or a book. Suggested format for citing this paper: Klymenko, L. (2013), ‘Making Sense of World War II: How Russian and Ukrainian Textbooks Foster National Identities’, CEURUS EU-Russia Papers, No. 7. Centre for EU-Russia Studies, University of Tartu http://ceurus.ut.ee Editor: Martin Mölder Cover design: Kalle Paalits Layout: Tiia Ilus Copyright: authors, University of Tartu, 2013 ISSN 2228-1282 Tartu University Press www.tyk.ee MAKING SENSE OF WORLD WAR II: HOW RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN TEXTBOOKS FOSTER NATIONAL IDENTITIES ABSTRACT1 Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the memory of World War II has been used in state-led nation-building processes of post-Soviet countries to foster a sense of national belonging. This paper provides an insight into the offi cial discourse of World War II in Russia and Ukraine by concentrating on a comparative analysis of World War II representations in Russian and Ukrainian school history textbooks. The study is based on a discourse analysis approach, focusing both on key textbook themes, such as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the German attack on the Soviet Union, the Nazi occupation regime, the Soviet army off ensive and resistance movements, and on their linguistic realization. The study reveals that in the Ukrainian textbook national identity is created through a portrayal of Ukrainians who suff ered under the German occupation and the Stalinist regime and who also heroically contributed to the victory over Nazism in Europe. In the Russian textbook, in contrast, the national identity is built through a depiction of the heroism and self-sacrifi ce of all Soviet people on the territory of the former Soviet Union. INTRODUCTION In the Soviet Union, World War II came to be known as the Great Patriotic War and served as one of the historical myths that legitimized the Soviet Union’s existence. Particularly, glorifi cation of the struggle of the Soviet Army against the enemy became an underpinning of the Great Patriotic War myth. As Langenohl suggests, the victory of the Soviet Union in the war was supposed to legitimize communism and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as the leading forces behind the Soviet people’s fi ght against Nazi occupiers. Starting from the 1960s under Brezhnev, the meaning of the Soviet victory in the war was coded as a heroic self-sacrifi ce of parents and grandparents in order to foster a feeling of patriotism among their children and grandchildren.2 After World War II, as Francois argues, the Allies created a heroic picture of the war by defi ning two groups of people linked to the war experience – heroes and victims. Among the heroes were not only the 1 I would like to thank Eva-Clarita Pettai and Martin Mölder for their valuable comments. This is a working version of a research paper to be published elsewhere. 2 Langenohl, A. (2006), ‘Das nackte und das gute Leben: eine sequenzanalytische Deutung der postsowjetischen Erinnerung der Opfer im Großen Vaterländischen Krieg,’ in Faulenbach, B. and Jelich, F.-J. (eds.),“Transformationen” der Erinnerungskulturen in Europa nach 1989, Essen: Klartext Verlag, pp. 256–257. - 1 - charismatic military leaders of World War II but also partisan resistance fi ghters. Among victims, millions of civilian victims of bombings, Nazi massacres and mass executions were remembered and their places of suff ering were often sacralised. Such an interpretation was advantageous for the countries that fought against Germany. In its function as a new beginning, the master narrative contributed to the restoration of internally divided countries, served as a basis for people’s identity, suppressed the dark sides of the past and off ered integration for people who fought on diff erent sides in the war.3 Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the memory of World War II has not faded in post-Soviet societies, however. For the leaderships of the former Soviet republics the re-interpretation of this historical event has even become one of the key elements in creating their countries’ post-Soviet national identities. In Ukraine, for example, along with the famine of 1932–33, World War II became one of the main historical events shaping the post-Soviet Ukrainian national identity. As Troebst argues, in the re-interpretation of communism and World War II, Ukraine is the only CIS country where confl icts over the interpretation of the past turned into a battlefi eld for the post-communist and the national liberal political camps. These processes are similar to what has been taking place in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.4 As Scherrer points out, the state-led nation-building in Ukraine has focussed on the construction of an identity that lies beyond the Soviet past that it shares with Russia. In this way, instead of a common Soviet heritage, Ukraine wants to establish a national culture, independent of Russia, that promotes a Ukrainian collective memory.5 Previous studies on the formation of national identity in post-Soviet Ukraine have revealed that a new victim-and- hero paradigm has been adopted in the public and academic discourses, often portraying Ukrainians both as victims of the Soviet regime and as descendants of heroes of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in struggle for Ukraine’s independence.6 According to Marples, in the case of victimization, “the suff ering has permitted the prevalence of the national conception of history that perceives and isolates Ukraine’s past as 3 François, E. (2004), ‘Meistererzählungen und Dammbrüche. Die Erinnerung an den Zweiten Weltkrieg zwischen Nationalisierung und Universalisierung,’ in Flacke, M. (ed.), Mythen der Nationen. 1945 – Arena der Erinnerungen. Katalog zur Ausstellung im Deutschen Historischen Museum Berlin, Mainz: Philipp von Zabern Verlag, pp. 15–17. 4 Troebst, S. (2005), ‘Jalta versus Stalingrad, GULag versus Holocaust,’ Berliner Journal für Soziologie, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 381-400. 5 Scherrer, J. (2004a), ‘Ukraine. Konkurrierende Erinnerungen,’ in Flacke, M. (ed.), Mythen der Nationen. 1945 – Arena der Erinnerungen. Katalog zur Ausstellung im Deutschen Historischen Museum Berlin, Mainz: Philipp von Zabern Verlag, p. 728. 6 Marples, D. R. (2007), Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine, Budapest: Central European University Press. - 2 - a lengthy struggle against foreign oppressors, principally Russians and Poles, but also for a time Germans as well.”7 In the case of heroization, Smith et al. observe that the description of the UPA as fi ghters for Ukraine’s liberation follows a myth of resistance and revival of national histories: “As in most nationalist mythologies, heroes and martyrs, and the description of the striving of the nation towards eventual redemption, tend to play a prominent place in the Ukrainophile […] schema”.8 In Russia, on the other hand, a continuity of old authoritarian structures hinders a clear rejection of the communist past. This is the case also in Moldova and other CIS states, particularly in Belarus and the de-facto state of Transnistria, where authoritarian elites explicitly refer to the communist regime model.9 As Gudkov argues, in Russia the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War became the most important identifi cation symbol for the national consciousness in Russian society.10 “Deeply rooted in society, the memory of the war is the most important shared memory in the country and plays a prominent role in the building of a national identity”, Ferretti argues.11 The understanding of World War II in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, as the study further shows, still conceives today’s Russia as being identical with the territory of the Soviet Union. As Smith et al. explain, socialization in Russia during the Soviet period had a major impact on the development of contemporary Russian identity. Unlike the ethnic republics of the Soviet Union, which possessed their own national institutions – e.g. Communist Party, Academy of Sciences and even KGB – Russians did not have an obvious national homeland with accompanying institutions and, therefore, were encouraged to think about the Soviet Union as their homeland. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, when people of the Soviet ethnic republics have been provided with a choice of identity on the basis of institutions, Russians have lacked a particular association with their union republic. They therefore identify themselves with the Soviet Union, in the sense that the boundaries of the Soviet Union coincided with the Russian sense of identity.12 7 Marples, D. R. (2007), op. cit., p. x. 8 Smith, G. et al. (eds.) (1997), Nation-Building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politics of National Identities, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.

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