Cult of the Great Patriotic War
대조국전쟁 숭배
The term, fixed by historian Nina Tumarkin in her 1994 book, denotes the state cult through which the Soviet authorities institutionalised the memory of the Great Patriotic War. Stalin's regime first celebrated the victory as a heroic, messianic narrative but briefly demoted the myth out of unease at its popular heroes and stories of personal initiative. The cult reached its apogee in the Brezhnev era from 1965, when Victory Day, the Hero City titles, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, school rituals, and war literature and cinema made the victory the regime's founding myth in place of the October Revolution.
In depth
Origins and development
Nina Tumarkin's The Living and the Dead: The Rise and Fall of the Cult of World War II in Russia (1994) is the standard study. She argues that Stalin's immediate post-war memorialisation was heroic, triumphalist, even messianic, but that the myth was briefly demoted because the war produced too many popular heroes and stories of personal initiative.
The turning point was 1965. Marking the 20th anniversary, the Brezhnev regime restored 9 May as a non-labour holiday (it had not been one between 1948 and 1965), codified the Hero City title by ukase of 8 May 1965, and, in 1967, dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow. The Minute of Silence ritual also dates from 1965.
Ritual and symbol
The cult acquired the full apparatus of civic liturgy: parades, fireworks, veterans' organisations, military-patriotic instruction in schools, and a canon of war literature and epic cinema (for example, the Liberation film series). War memory became the 'history in the heart', the source of legitimacy the regime used to supplant the October Revolution as its founding story.
Decline and transformation
From 1990 glasnost and the discrediting of the official narrative eroded the cult's ritual authority, and after the Soviet collapse Victory Day was adapted and re-mobilised politically in Russia. Tumarkin's analytic term remains central, because it points out that this memory was manufactured rather than lived.
Related historical events
Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) Victory Day inaugurated 1945 but became a non-labour day only in 1965; Minute of Silence tradition dates to 1965
- Wikipedia (EN) Hero City title statute introduced by ukase of 8 May 1965, 12 cities and Brest Fortress
- Wikipedia (RU) 9 May was not a holiday 1948–1965; under Brezhnev Victory Day became central and the victory replaced the October Revolution as the Soviet 'history in the heart'
- books.google.com Nina Tumarkin, The Living and the Dead (1994): Stalin first memorialised the war as heroic and messianic then demoted the myth; the cult reached its apogee under Brezhnev and declined from 1990
- dokumen.pub Tumarkin attributes the growing war cult to the state's wish to mobilise loyalty and identify an unambiguous Western enemy