The Great War in Russian Memory [Hardcover]

Karen Petrone shatters the notion that World War I was a forgotten war in the Soviet Union. Although never officially commemorated, the Great War was the subject of a lively discourse about religion, heroism, violence, and patriotism during the interwar period. Using memoirs, literature, films, military histories, and archival materials, Petrone reconstructs Soviet ideas regarding the motivations for fighting, the justification for killing, the nature of the enemy, and the qualities of a hero. She reveals how some of these ideas undermined Soviet notions of military honor and patriotism while others reinforced them. As the political culture changed and war with Germany loomed during the Stalinist 1930s, internationalist voices were silenced and a nationalist view of Russian military heroism and patriotism prevailed.

Karen Petrones book is at one and the same time a major contribution to the history of Russia and to the history of the Great War. By placing the cultural history of Russia in a European perspective of mass mourning and selective remembrance, Petrone has managed to help Russify the way the history of the First World War and its aftermath is configured. Here is cultural history at its best.An original work of serious scholarship. . . . Petrone engages with a flourishing literature on the cultural consequences of the First World War.[W]orld War I was not completely forgotten, but when one compares Russia to every other country, this books main contribution is its detailed confirmation of an incredible story of the near total elimination of public memory of the most traumatic historical event in Russian history in the entire century from 1815 to 1917.January 2013Overall, this book offers a detailed and comprehensive survey of World War I discourse. . . . After reading The Great War in Russian Memory, there is little doubt that THE Russian experience of war merits closer study in a broader, European context.Petrone has revealed new and fascinatinlÓp