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2017 | Buch

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War and Memory in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus

herausgegeben von: Julie Fedor, Markku Kangaspuro, Jussi Lassila, Tatiana Zhurzhenko

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This edited collection contributes to the current vivid multidisciplinary debate on East European memory politics and the post-communist instrumentalization and re-mythologization of World War II memories. The book focuses on the three Slavic countries of post-Soviet Eastern Europe – Russia, Ukraine and Belarus – the epicentre of Soviet war suffering, and the heartland of the Soviet war myth. The collection gives insight into the persistence of the Soviet commemorative culture and the myth of the Great Patriotic War in the post-Soviet space. It also demonstrates that for geopolitical, cultural, and historical reasons the political uses of World War II differ significantly across Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, with important ramifications for future developments in the region and beyond.
The chapters 'Introduction: War and Memory in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus', ‘From the Trauma of Stalinism to the Triumph of Stalingrad: The Toponymic Dispute over Volgograd’ and 'The “Partisan Republic”: Colonial Myths and Memory Wars in Belarus' are published open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.
The chapter 'Memory, Kinship, and Mobilization of the Dead: The Russian State and the “Immortal Regiment” Movement' is published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Open Access

Chapter 1. Introduction: War and Memory in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus

Abstract

This introductory essay begins with a discussion of World War II memory in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, in light of the recent and ongoing war in Ukraine. It outlines the main contours of the interplay between “memory wars” and real war, and the important “post-Crimean” qualitative shift in local memory cultures in this connection. Next, the essay sketches out the specifics of the war memory landscapes of the region, and then of each of the three individual countries, before moving on to introduce the key organizing themes and findings of the book.

Julie Fedor, Simon Lewis, Tatiana Zhurzhenko

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Memories of World War II and Nation-Building

Frontmatter

Chapter 2. Political Uses of the Great Patriotic War in Post-Soviet Russia from Yeltsin to Putin

Abstract

This chapter examines the political uses of the Great Patriotic War in post-Soviet Russia as part of the official policy aimed at the (re)construction of Russian national identity. The focus is on political uses of the war memory by the governing political elite, that is, by those who speak on behalf of the state or who have sufficient resources to influence the official symbolic policy. The chapter analyzes political speeches and media coverage of commemorative ceremonies with a view to identifying the main frames of representation of the war in Russian official discourse under Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, and Dmitrii Medvedev, revealing links between the political use of history and Russian domestic and foreign policy.

Olga Malinova

Chapter 3. “Unhappy Is the Person Who Has No Motherland”: National Ideology and History Writing in Lukashenka’s Belarus

Abstract

Since coming to power in 1994, Belarusian president Aliaksandr Lukashenka has made considerable efforts to consolidate the young republic. Two main periods can be identified: between 1994 and 2001 the Lukashenka government officially promoted moves towards ever-closer integration with Russia, while after 2001 the regime has put a heavier emphasis on independence and statehood. Whereas the legacy of the Belarusian SSR retains a central role in the history writing and memory production of the Lukashenka government, the regime has in recent years also shown increasing interest in appropriating at least some of the oppositional symbolism. This chapter surveys the official rhetoric, historical references, and the expanding base of historical symbolism of official Belarusian patriotism under Lukashenka.

Per Anders Rudling

Chapter 4. Reclaiming the Past, Confronting the Past: OUN–UPA Memory Politics and Nation Building in Ukraine (1991–2016)

Abstract

This chapter traces the history of the memory of the wartime Ukrainian nationalist movement, represented by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its military, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), from 1991 to the present. Via an analysis of the changing official political discourse over this period, the chapter investigates what role the issue of the history of the OUN and UPA has played in Ukrainian political debates, and how it has been instrumentalized by different political actors. It argues that post-independence Ukrainian memory politics have been shaped in crucial ways by the tension between two different frameworks of dealing with the past: reclaiming the past, and confronting the past (with an emphasis on a critical view on difficult aspects of that past).

Yuliya Yurchuk

In Stalin’s Shadow

Frontmatter

Open Access

Chapter 5. From the Trauma of Stalinism to the Triumph of Stalingrad: The Toponymic Dispute Over Volgograd

Abstract

This chapter examines the Putin-era debates over the name of Volgograd/Stalingrad, the site of the historic Battle of Stalingrad. The case of the symbolic politics around the name of this city offers rich material for studying the dynamics of triumph and trauma in Russia. While the theme of Stalingrad continues to represent the core symbol of national triumph, it also inescapably refers to the most acute trauma of the state’s past: the Stalin era. The chapter shows how the debate over the name of Stalingrad reveals a twofold, and somewhat paradoxical, dynamic between the state’s bid for hegemony, on the one hand, and the inexorable pluralization of commemorations of the national past in today’s Russia, on the other.

Markku Kangaspuro, Jussi Lassila

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Chapter 6. When Stalin Lost His Head: World War II and Memory Wars in Contemporary Ukraine

Abstract

In the last two decades Ukraine became a battleground of two post-Soviet historical narratives of World War II: the Communist narrative, based on the experiences of the veterans of the Soviet Army, and its nationalist alternative, based predominantly on the experiences of the fighters of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. There is also a third, liberal interpretation of the war that is slowly emerging in contemporary Ukraine. This chapter examines the role that the cult of Joseph Stalin plays in articulating these three approaches to the history of World War II. It takes as its point of departure the incident that took place in the city of Zaporizhia in Southern Ukraine in December 2010 when a statue to Joseph Stalin, installed a few months earlier by the members of the Communist party of Ukraine on the doorsteps of their regional headquarters was beheaded by Ukrainian nationalists.

Serhii Plokhy

Chapter 7. “We Should be Proud Not Sorry”: Neo-Stalinist Literature in Contemporary Russia

Abstract

This chapter argues that contemporary Russian neo-Stalinist literature offers a useful prism for examining the post-traumatic syndromes of a post-totalitarian society. It begins by providing an overview of the phenomenon of Russian neo-Stalinist literature, sketching out its key themes, authors, and volume. Next, this literature is placed in the context of the shifting Russian perceptions of the Stalin period over the past sixty years. Finally, the chapter analyzes the reasons for the existence and popularity of neo-Stalinist literature in today’s Russia. It argues that the crucial factor behind this popularity is the public disillusionment and aversion towards perestroika and the liberal reforms of the late 1980s–1990s, now linked in the public mind with the anti-Stalinist campaign of that period.

Philipp Chapkovski

New Agents and Communities of Memory

Frontmatter

Chapter 8. Successors to the Great Victory: Afghan Veterans in Post-Soviet Belarus

Abstract

This chapter explores the shifting evolution and public negotiation of the meaning of Belarusian war memory, through a study of two post-Soviet memorials in Belarus: the Island of Tears, a memorial to the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), officially opened in central Minsk in 1996, and the Stalin Line, a memorial to the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945), opened on the western outskirts of Minsk in 2006. This analysis traces the multiple ways in which these two memorials connect and reconstitute the memories of these two wars in new and sometimes unexpected ways, both transforming existing post-Soviet narrative elements and combining them with newly invented visions of the past as a means of updating the Soviet legacy to fit the current context.

Felix Ackermann

Chapter 9. Generational Memory and the Post-Soviet Welfare State: Institutionalizing the “Children of War” in Post-Soviet Russia

Abstract

As the Soviet war veterans pass away, the next generation, those who experienced the war as children and adolescents, inevitably receive more public attention. This chapter addresses the growing prominence of the “children of war” in contemporary Russia and investigates how this generation is constructed at the crossroads of discourses on World War II memory and national identity, on moral values in the Russian society and on principles of social policy in a market economy. It analyzes bottom-up social initiatives and top-down strategies of the political elites in Russia aimed at the institutionalization of a special status for the “children of war.” The chapter also shows how the initiatives aimed at forging inter-generational solidarity and strengthening the public consensus on war memory often create new social hierarchies and lead to competition between different status groups.

Tatiana Zhurzhenko

Chapter 10. Ostarbeiters of the Third Reich in Ukrainian and European Public Discourses: Restitution, Recognition, Commemoration

Abstract

This chapter recounts the history of the emergence of a particular “community of memory” in Ukraine: the Ostarbeiters or “Eastern workers,” civilians mobilized for labor purposes in the Third Reich during the war. It shows how the stories of the Ostarbeiters, which were largely silenced during the Soviet period for their dissonance with the Soviet war myth, were recovered with the arrival of Ukrainian state independence in 1991 and incorporated into new national narratives of Ukrainian victimhood. In a parallel move, the chapter demonstrates how Ostarbeiters as a social group were reconstituted through post-Cold War restitution politics when the German government finally acknowledged moral responsibility for forced labor as a crime of the Nazi regime and started issuing moral compensation for its victims.

Gelinada Grinchenko

Old/New Narratives and Myths

Frontmatter

Open Access

Chapter 11. Memory, Kinship, and the Mobilization of the Dead: The Russian State and the “Immortal Regiment” Movement

Abstract

This chapter examines a new addition to the repertoire of Victory Day commemorative traditions in post-Soviet space: the newly invented annual “Immortal Regiment” parade, in which people march bearing photographs of their ancestors who fought in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. The chapter focuses on attempts by the state authorities and their supporters to instrumentalize the new ritual and to appropriate the Red Army’s war dead, and the emotions they evoke. It explores the ways in which the figure of the dead Red Army soldier is being brought back to life in new ways as part of the current regime’s authoritarian project.

Julie Fedor

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Chapter 12. The Holocaust in the Public Discourse of Post-Soviet Ukraine

Abstract

The subjects of the Holocaust and the fate of the Jews during World War II in many respects remain on the margins of public discourse in Ukraine where one can observe a competition between two co-existing but rather inflexible narratives: the (post-)Soviet narrative, on the one hand, and the nationalistic narrative, on the other. Diametrically opposed in other respects, they are united on one point: both of them marginalize the memory of the Holocaust and the tragic fate of the Jewish population in Ukraine. This chapter examines the Ukrainian discourse on the Holocaust, tracing connections to the country’s Soviet past and its present geopolitical position between the European Union and Russia. It pays particular attention to the role played by Jewish international organizations on this issue, and to the views of Jewish Ukrainian intellectuals on the Ukrainian–Jewish dialogue.

Andrii Portnov

Open Access

Chapter 13. The “Partisan Republic”: Colonial Myths and Memory Wars in Belarus

Abstract

This chapter combines trauma theory and postcolonial theory in the study of memory in post-war and post-Soviet Belarus. It argues that the Soviet myth of Belarus as the “Partisan Republic” displaced trauma, attempting to delimit the contours of memory but only deferring the painful process of coming to terms with the past. In addition, it examines the creation of a monolithic image of Soviet Belarusianness based on the memory of the war, i.e. the construct of the “Partisan Republic,” as a form of colonial discourse a means of imposing hegemonic identity norms on a dominated population. Both the Soviet-era resistance to this myth and the unmaking of the edifice in the post-Soviet era are analyzed in terms of postcolonial theory through discussion of the works of several Soviet and post-Soviet authors, musicians, and artists.

Simon Lewis

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Local Cases

Frontmatter

Chapter 14. Great Patriotic War Memory in Sevastopol: Making Sense of Suffering in the “City of Military Glory”

Abstract

This chapter examines the central paradox of Sevastopol’s cultural memory—that though renowned for its military glory, it is in fact a city of military defeats. It explores the city’s robust commemorative apparatus and argues that the endurance of Sevastopol’s glory narrative over time can be attributed to the local population’s dynamic memory performances. These performances, which range from the didactic and dramatic, to the ceremonial and martial, center on the motif of Sevastopol’s “two defenses” and serve to perpetuate the city’s distinctive narrative cycle of devastation followed by rebirth, of suffering and defeat followed by glory. The chapter considers the commemoration of elements of Sevastopol’s war history that do not sit easily with the glory narratives, and concludes that Sevastopol’s mythology of military glory, though enduring, is ultimately limiting for the city’s past as well as its future.

Judy Brown

Chapter 15. On Victims and Heroes: (Re)Assembling World War II Memory in the Border City of Narva

Abstract

This chapter explores the urban memoryscape of the city of Narva, which lies on the border dividing Russia and the European Union (Estonia), and the Russian and Estonian national memory cultures. The chapter examines the distinctive forms of the Narvitian World War II memoryscape as a border hybrid memoryscape, shaped through constant dialogic relations with the space of memory and identity of Estonia, Russia, and Europe, but also preserving its own unique face, reflecting the specifics of Narva’s history and the ethnic and social composition of the city. The chapter discusses the complex interplay here between the images of “heroes” and “victims” as the central figures in the Russian and Estonian national memoryscapes. It considers examples of Aufarbeitung der Vergangen (working through the past) at the local level and demonstrate how multi-directional national narratives can be refracted, transformed, and reconciled in this highly specific border space of memory.

Elena Nikiforova

Chapter 16. War Memorials in Karelia: A Place of Sorrow or Glory?

Abstract

This chapter examines the specificity of the monumental memorialization of World War II in Karelia. It sets out to answer the following questions: how did policy on the memory of the Great Patriotic War influence the remembering and/or the forgetting of the Winter War and the erasure of the image of Finland as the occupier of Karelia from officially constructed memory? And, later, how was the break with the Soviet past in the early 1990s reflected in monumental memorialization of World War II in this region? The chapter draws on a variety of sources, including official documents from the National Archives of the Republic of Karelia, the local press, and surveys conducted with the local population.

Aleksandr V. Antoshchenko, Valentina V. Volokhova, Irina S. Shtykova

Backmatter

Titel: War and Memory in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus
herausgegeben von: Julie Fedor
Markku Kangaspuro
Jussi Lassila
Tatiana Zhurzhenko
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-66523-8
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-66522-1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66523-8