Myth Making in the Soviet Union and Modern Russia

Remembering World War II in Brezhnev's Hero City

Vicky Davis

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781786722737
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Communism, Post-Communism & Socialism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The 1943 battle to free the Soviet Black Sea port of Novorossiisk from German occupation was fought from the beach head of Malaia zemlia, where the young Colonel Leonid Brezhnev saw action. Despite widespread scepticism of the state's appropriation and inflation of this historical event, the heroes of the campaign are still commemorated in Novorossiisk today by an amalgam of memoir, monuments and ritual. Through the prism of this provincial Russian town, Vicky Davis sheds light on the character of Brezhnev as perceived by his people, and on the process of memory for the ordinary Russian citizen. Davis analyses the construction and propagation of the local war myth to link the individual citizens of Novorossiisk with evolving state policy since World War II and examines the resultant social and political connotations. Her compelling new interdisciplinary evidence reveals the complexity of myth and memory, challenging existing assumptions to show that there is still scope for the local community - and even the individual - in memory construction in an authoritarian environment. This book represents a much-needed departure from the study of myth and memory in larger cities of the former Soviet Union, adding nuance to the existing portrait of Brezhnev and demonstrating the continued importance of war memory in Russia today.

CHAPTER 1

WHAT IS AWAR MYTH?

However intently you study a map of our Motherland, you will not find this name on the Black Sea coast. It was marked on wartime maps and remains only on the granite stone of monuments, in the yellowed triangular letters from the field, and in the memories of heroes.¹

In 2015 I travelled across Russia by train from one coast to another. Starting in Novorossiisk on the Black Sea, I finished four weeks and 11,000 kilometres later in Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean. Over the following few months I carefully revisited the thousands of photographs taken during this journey, selecting the best while discarding those that were less than perfect often where a bridge strut had suddenly come into view just as the shutter opened, spoiling the image of an otherwise picturesque river. Gradually, I whittled down my cumbersome collection to a manageable number, which I arranged chronologically and thematically into a photograph album of the trip. Finally, I prepared a presentation to deliver to various audiences about the experience.

The talks that I have given since then have presented this adventure as a mythologised expedition into the unknown, a condensed and sanitised version of the actual journey suitable for relatively quick oral narration. My images and the narrative around them were selected for the impression I wished to transmit of a coherent journey, omitting all the duds and misfits and those that were tangential to the main story-line. In this fashion, my talks spin an organised tale of a journey across an idealised Russia, situating my experience – based on fact but retrospectively ordered into a logical account – in the context of the already mythologised expanse of Siberia. In time, I suspect that I will only remember the journey thanks to the mediation of that concise photograph album, as many smaller details are forgotten and only the overview, a modern myth cooked up over a few months, passes into family folklore.

Classical war myths take much longer to mature, but go through basically the same process of simplification and sanitisation. A well-known example from the culture of ancient Greece is the tale of the Trojan War, which, according to archaeologists, could have taken place as early as the twelfth century BC². Awash with powerful gods and fearless heroes, myths and legends grew up around the protracted siege of Troy by the Greeks, enduring to the present day. Modern war myths may superficially have something in common with the legends of antiquity: just like the Greeks, the Malaia zemlia campaign had its own small fleet and tenacious heroes. The classical legends were traditional narratives representing a people’s shared system of morality and common heritage. Oral propagation was the norm until Homer’s epic poem, the Iliad, brought together various existing versions of the siege of Troy and other exploits, many hundreds of years after the events. In Russian culture the tradition of epic poetry is much more modern than in ancient Greece: the process of oral myth making is described by Mikhail Lermontov in his poem about the legendary Battle of Borodino against Napoleon in 1812.³

An oral relationship with the past is not uncommon in traditional societies, where literacy is perhaps less established than in developed countries. The relationship between historical time and memorial time is key to an understanding of the mechanism of the propagation of any myth – not just in the Soviet Union or modern Russia. In the West the emphasis has long been on the objective, analytical discipline of history, where time conventionally flows in a linear fashion. In contrast, we have only to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude to recognise the circular temporality involved in the flow of mythical time in a traditional culture. Here, the gap between past and present is bridged and the temporal distance between generations is decreased, allowing for a greater empathy between contemporary citizens and their antecedents. The subjects of myth lived many years ago, but remain almost ahistorical – very much a part of the present and a constant reminder of the past even today, at the forefront of popular consciousness and fed by a string of anniversaries and related events.

From the point of view of the speed and scope of propagation of myths about ancient Greece or the Napoleonic wars, it is impossible to compare classical myths and legends with their modern counterparts. Malaia zemlia became a myth almost before its time, featuring in written accounts even as the campaign was being waged, rather like the aerial Battle of Britain in 1940. Nevertheless, all war myths present a narrative about a significant event in the past, often at a turning point in history, a coherent message disseminated down the generations, which tells the audience about the characteristics of the participants and helps to forge the identity of their descendants. This narrative represents public memory of the event, distilled and simplified from possibly disparate original accounts for effective transmission and ease of remembering.

Some scholars use the expression ‘collective memory’ or ‘social memory’ when speaking about the agreed popular narrative about a shared event in the past.⁴ Both of these terms have their problems, as many would argue that memory resides in the minds of individuals rather than in a country, society or community. Jay Winter has suggested that the term ‘collective remembrance’ may be more suitable, emphasising the communal practices involved in the propagation of a publicly agreed narrative⁵. For the purposes of this book, I will try where possible to avoid the use of ambiguous expressions in favour of the term ‘war myth’ – a designatio which can cause its own problems of interpretation and needs to be carefully defined.

The current understanding of the term ‘myth’ is clearly expressed in relation to memory of World War II in Britain by John Ramsden:

Historians [. . .] use ‘myth’ to denote the way in which memories of the past have been selectively organised, an agreed version of the past that explains how a people came to be what they believe themselves to be in the present.⁶

The communal aspect of the term is emphasised by Lisa Kirschenbaum, writing of the myth of the siege of Leningrad: ‘the shared narratives that give form and meaning to the recall of past experience’.⁷ Similarly, Malcolm Smith uses the word in the context of the myth of 1940 in Britain to mean ‘a widely held view of the past which has helped to shape and to explain the present’.⁸ These three definitions show that, in order to survive, a myth must have utility in the present, normally for the ruling elite and often for the people themselves. The narrative is usually the property of victors, proud of their courageous ancestors, with the implication that their heroic characteristics are transmitted across the generations to their descendants today. A story that portrayed a people in a negative light would have no future: it is the positivity inherent in war myths that ensures their continuing popularity.

My definition explains this inherent popularity of a war myth thus:

A war myth is a shared and simplified narrative of the past with utility in the present thanks to its enduring emotional and moral appeal.

This says nothing about how the myth is propagated, but acknowledges that it helps to support a community’s memory of the past and keep it alive for future generations, as both the product and the process of remembrance. In essence, a myth is a narrative developed to portray a people in its best light, often depicting characters overcoming huge odds to win in the end. As such, a war myth may be exploited by a ruling elite to boost the morale of the population, often giving meaning and order to a difficult and chaotic period. For example, the martyrdom in wartime evident in the ancient legend of the siege of Masada was revived in the 1920s by Zionist intellectuals and is still invoked today in modern Israel.⁹ A national war myth can help to unify a country, but would not last long unless it had some utility in the present for a nation’s leaders or people.

Memory studies which concentrate on the manipulation of history by a dominant sector for current political utility employ a so-called ‘presentist’ paradigm, which is superficially applicable to studies of the Soviet and post-Soviet cults of war memory. Those in power are credited with re-interpreting a malleable past, picking and choosing its more useful aspects in order to render the whole more effective for current use. Aiming to unify the people and legitimise the prevailing institutions, the leaders may manipulate what is selected and what is deliberately omitted from the narrative they create, while promoting a contrived or agreed forgetting of any past events that may once have threatened national unity.

Traditional Russian communities have always been particularly fond of their canon of myths, legends and folk-tales. If the tsar once held the whole Russian Empire together by virtue of dynastic right, myths could be extremely useful tools in bonding its successor, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). This huge area spanning several time and geographical zones, with regional variations in race and ethnicity. language and religion, was not a strong candidate for nationhood in its own right. Only a strong interaction between myth and nation would be capable of bonding the people through a shared cultural heritage underpinning a new common ideology.

In this way, the first leaders of the new Soviet Union started to disseminate their ideology through the myths of the October Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent civil war (1917–22). In much the same way as Brezhnev’s service on Malaia zemlia was warped and exaggerated in his memoirs, the life trajectories of individual revolutionary leaders were sometimes artificially created, such that, through them, the state acquired its own heroic identity as a nation prepared to fight for its new ideology. Gradually much of the population came to identify with the myth, in some cases re-inventing their own back-stories as incipient revolutionaries, either consciously due to coercion or unconsciously thanks to the ubiquity of the myth to fit in with the official meta-narrative as it became assimilated int popular consciousness.¹⁰ During the 1920s the myth of the revolution evolved quickly and pervasively. Portrayed retrospectively as the natural conclusion to the popular people’s struggle, the revolution became the legitimate starting point for further conflicts, including the Great Patriotic War, in what appeared to be a coherent narrative of an organised and meaningful series of events. ¹¹

Soviet ideology, based on Marxism-Leninism, was disseminated to the masses through a distinctive use of language. The early leaders of the Soviet Union implemented a programme of literacy amongst the population and regulated the material available to read and to hear such that the people were exposed to a flow of ideological discourse via the press, posters, radio and key speeches. Language became the defining framework for ideology and heroes part of the official discourse of the times.

There is clearly an overlap in interpretation of the term ‘ideology’ and the means through which this ideology is disseminated: the belief system itself and the narrative discourse it employs.¹² The manipulation of the people by the elite through the use of propaganda served to legitimise the early Communist Party and persuade the population into conformity. By the time war broke out in 1941, people had got used to these conventions of discourse and often appropriated them themselves either unconsciously or in order to appear politically correct. A shared ideological discourse, with its own formulaic figures of speech and linguistic conventions, became a fact of everyday life. Public social conventions and behaviour were remodelled around ideological practices, for example educational meetings of party members after work. Labels were simplistic, allowing for little nuance of interpretation. Ideas and people were portrayed as black or white – communism or capitalism, bourgeois or peasant, enemy or friend. The war myth that developed contained many characteristics of a traditional fairy tale, as the ‘fascist occupier’ replaced the ‘wicked witch’ fighting a range of heroes of the Soviet Union in the starring roles.¹³

The myth was further promoted by the introduction of official public ceremonies and films mediated by the state to convince the population of the supremacy of the Bolshevik cause and to include them in its values. Aspects of the narrative of the revolution are common to most examples of mythology, including Malaia zemlia: its own symbolism (the hammer and sickle) and a language with its own loaded terminology and specialised vocabulary (for example, bourgeoisie or proletariat).

Twenty years after World War II the founding myth of the Soviet Union was supplemented by a cogent and unifying war myth which effectively glued the population together as it re-invoked heroic values to which virtually everybody could subscribe. In this way people could make sense of the war as a further step in the ongoing revolutionary process, with the added advantage that most citizens had at least some experience of the war, while not all had seen the revolution at first hand. During the Brezhnev era the war myth finally became embedded in schools and other institutions as official history in a mechanism similar to that whereby the myth of the October revolution had taken root. As the war myth evolved, the myth of the Bolshevik Revolution gradually became less prominent, especially after its fiftieth anniversary in 1967. ¹⁴

Many of the strategies employed by the communist elite of the early Soviet Union, including the appropriation of history, are still in use today. The new Russian elite, in search of usable aspects of the Soviet past in the construction of a politically useful national identity, have revived the myth of the Great Patriotic War, which has now effectively displaced that of the Bolshevik Revolution. War memory is stated by President Putin to be ‘an excellent cement, uniting people of different nationalities, different ethnicities and different religions into one indivisible Russian nation’.¹⁵ The war myth is now so culturally ingrained in modern Russia that remembrance even unites people of different political persuasions. A presentist approach also emphasises the traditional behavioural values promoted by the myth of an heroic people. This is evident in the Soviet and post-Soviet stress on vospitanie, the moral education that inculcates in the younger generation a belief system propagated by the state as both patriotic and traditional, while ensuring the continuation of such widely desirable national characteristics. This conservative attitude to moral values tends to produce an ideological status quo, which could eventually lead to the stagnation of memory and commemorative practices.

Ernst Renan appreciated that a nation’s shared past could also include shared suffering: ‘Where national memories are concerned, griefs are of more value than triumphs, for they impose duties, and require a common effort.’¹⁶ As in the case of Masada, a strong nation is often confirmed through martyrdom, as a sacrifice made in the common interest underlines the value of the nation today as something (still) worth fighting for, while also legitimising the continuation of ceremonies of remembrance sponsored by the state, notably Victory Day, the popular Russian equivalent of VE Day, which falls annually on 9 May. This argument justifies collateral damage in the war for the sake of a positive outcome. The overpowering commemorative narrative constructed by the Soviet state nipped in the bud any potential questioning surrounding the huge losses incurred in the war by presenting the dead as heroes and martyrs, who sacrificed their lives for their country and its communist ideology. Frequent reference is still made in Russia to the nation’s gratitude to the millions who gave their lives in the war for the sake of their descendants and the country’s future. In this way a cult of ancestors has been built up, linking the past with a shared vision of a brighter future, where a blurring of time lines promotes historical continuity over the decades.

National identity is never more important than in wartime, but is also evident in any period when a society needs cohesion and a common goal. It is often in peacetime that a war myth is invoked in countries experiencing internal or external challenges. The use of the national war myth as a metaphor for nationhood by the ruling elite in order to promote social and political cohesion may be expected particularly in an authoritarian society such as the Soviet Union. Created during the Cold War in a period of perceived external threat and re-created in twenty-first century Russia to rally a nation facing possible disintegration from within, the national war myth fills the state’s need for a simple and positive message of a victorious nation. Within the national meta-narrative cultivated by the two war cults of the Brezhnev and Putin eras, the local war myth of Malaia zemlia has flourished.

The myth of Malaia zemlia offered an ideal political tool to the Soviet elite of the Brezhnev era thanks to its simple ingredients of a town occupied by the enemy, the daring night-time landings by a handful of men and the defence of the beach-head against all odds until the positive climax of the liberation. Added to this was the presence of the charismatic future general secretary. With details of thousands of Soviet deaths, alleged collaboration and betrayal strategically omitted, here was a narrative ripe for exploitation by the state. Like the overriding national war myth, it focused on the simple facts of the invasion by the deceitful enemy and the struggle of the people against all odds under the guidance of the communist leadership, until victory was finally won.

A myth can help a nation or community to make sense of the past, and leaders to justify present actions, by deploying a simple code which taps into the patriotic pride of the population. A modern war myth is therefore much richer than just an agreed narrative due to the inclusion of its own special tropes, rituals and symbols. The coded language in which it is often expressed, full of emotional imagery and local significance, is commonly appropriated by individuals. Where those more familiar with the war in northern France may still speak of the ‘Dunkirk spirit’ in reference to the solidarity of troops in mortal danger and those who went to save them, the people of Novorossiisk have their own set phrases that continue today, for example ‘the sacred land soaked in blood’. Rather like Dunkirk, the very name of Malaia zemlia can convey the motivating emotional message of small numbers stranded on the beach in the face of a strong enemy holding the upper ground. The word zemlia (land) has connotations of homeland, of dry land as seen from the sea, a land inhabited by compatriots, zemliaki, rather than the foreign invader. The expression Malaia zemlia hence gives the impression of an island, a...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Author
• Author_Bio
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List
• Preface
• Notes_on_the_text
• Introduction The Myth of Malaia zemlia.
• 1. What is a War Myth?
• Part I War Correspondence and Memoirs
• The Construction of the War Myth through Literature
• 2. A Myth is Born: Wa r Correspondence from Malaia zemlia
• 3. Early Memoir Literature
• 4. Brezhnev’s War Memoirs
• 5. Beyond Brezhnev and Brezhnevism
• Part II Leonid Brezhnev
• Local Legend or National Statesman?
• 6. Brezhnev Comes to Town
• 7. The Godfather
• 8. The Making of a Modern Legend
• 9. The State Comes to To wn Again
• Part III Respect for the Dead
• Ritual and Monumental Remembrance
• 10. Hats off to Heroes: The Beskozyrka Ritual
• 11. Myth and Monuments: The Place of the Dead
• 12. People on the Periphery
• Part IV Meetings of Generations
• Teaching the Young to Remember
• 13. Genes and Generations: Informal Tr ansmission of Memory in the Family
• 14. The Educational Role of Veterans
• 15. Formal Education of the Yo unger Generation
• Conclusion   Looking Back to the Future
• Appendix I   Some Comments from Citizens of Novorossiisk
• Appendix_02
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Back Cover