The fundamental question in Jonathan Brunstedt‘s book The Soviet Myth of World War II. Patriotic Memory and the Russian Question in the USSR is the relationship between Russocentric and pan-Soviet/internationalist narratives in the creation of the myth of World War II in the period from 1945 to the 1980s in the Soviet Union. The author claims that these two narratives shaped the prism through which World War II was presented by party leadership and the Soviet cultural intelligentsia. The first Russocentric narrative “promoted Russian leadership of an ethnically diverse and hierarchically configured collection of nations” (p. 31), whereas the pan-Soviet/internationalist narrative “limited displays of the singular role of the Russian people and heterogeneous hierarchy more generally in favor of a laterally united and Russian-speaking ‘Soviet people’” (ibid). The author shows how these two interpretations of the Soviet myth overlapped, interconnected and competed during the Soviet era.

In the beginning, the book analyses the post-war Stalinist period, after Stalin made his famous toast at a banquet in the Grand Kremlin Palace in honor of the commanders of the Red Army in late May 1945. In his toast the Soviet dictator declared that the Russian people “earned in this war general recognition as the guiding force of the Soviet Union” and “this trust of the Russian people in the Soviet Government proved to be the decisive force that ensured the historic victory over the enemy of mankind – over fascism” (pp. 35–36). According to Brunstedt, Stalin‘s toast became fundamental for the interpretation of the war that had just ended by emphasizing the leading role of the Russian people for the Soviet victory. The first chapter is devoted to this toast and further manifestations of this particular interpretation of the victory in World War II in the Stalinist era. Despite Stalin’s interpretation of the supposedly primary role of Russians during World War II, there was considerable variability in the presentation of the World War II in the USSR at that time. The author points to the example of central authorities and Russian cultural intelligentsia, as well as local authorities and the intelligentsia in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. There was a significant variation among both authorities and intelligentsia at all levels, as there were cases when they put “multiethnic friendship and shared Soviet heroism” first. At the same time, in others, they emphasized the primacy of the Russian people (p. 39). Such a variety of interpretations is explained by the main goal to “not directly … subordinate the wartime heroism of Russians to that of non-Russians” (p. 70).

The second chapter is devoted to the commemorative forms and practices of World War II in Russian cities during late Stalinism and its correlation with other pre-revolutionary topics of the Russian past. This includes the attempts to create a victory monument in the center of Moscow and the analysis of the discussions about how it could coexist with the prerevolutionary architectural heritage of the city. Another example is the construction of the Komsomol’skaia metro station with the depiction of “Nevskii, Donskoi, Minin and Pozharskii, Suvorov, and Kutuzov, culminating with the Red Army’s capture of the Reichstag” (p. 111). The third chapter deals with the Khrushchev period and how it brought forth a new Soviet unity myth of World War II without the cult of Stalin and with a reduction of Russocentric tendencies. This manifested itself in changes in different editions of the handbook “The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union” (1st and 2nd eds., 1959, 1962) under the main editorship of Boris Ponomarev and in the writing of the multi-volume handbook “The History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union” (6 vols., 1960–65) under the main editorship of Petr Pospelov and the introduction of the “Soviet people doctrine,” which in part viewed the Soviet people as a “unified, nation-like entity” (p. 30). The fourth chapter gives us an insight into Brezhnev's era when a pan-Soviet/internationalist tendency of World War II served as a significant stabilizing and unifying myth of a multi-ethnic state.

Nevertheless, the book emphasizes that the Russocentric paradigm was constantly present in the interpretation of the victory in World War II, which is evident in the rhetoric of individual party officials and Russian intellectuals. The last chapter is not chronological and focuses on the manifestations of the Russocentric tendency concerning the cult of World War II with the help of Russian intellectual nationalist circles from the late 1960s onward, which strengthens and partly reflects the offered conclusion in the fourth chapter. For this purpose, Brunstedt analyzes in particular the publications and activities of the All-Russian Society for Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments (Vserossiiskoe obschestvo okhrany pamiatnikov istorii i kul’tury, VOOPIiK ), as well as the Russian literary journals Molodaia gvardiia and Nash sovremennik. The author shows how these two tendencies coexisted during the late 1940s–1980s. He highlights the Stalinist paradigm, where the Russocentric paradigm occupied the central place at the official level, although it was not the only acceptable interpretation. It was only in the post-Stalinist period that officials promoted pan-Soviet/internationalist narratives, but Russocentric narratives nonetheless did not disappear.

Brunstedt’s book is in constant dialogue with other publications. For instance, he shares the theses of the book by Amir Weiner about the Ukrainian region of Vinnytsia1 on the Soviet “hierarchical heroism” and the “universal suffering principle” as “two major cornerstones for the emerging war myth” (p. 18), and Nina Tumarkin’s findings2 on the commemoration practices in Russia during the Soviet era (pp. 210, 260). At the same time Brunstedt‘s book is an insightful complement to the study by Malte Rolf3 as he offers a broader overview of the meaning of Soviet holidays. In a similar fashion Brunstedt contributes to the research into the creation of the World War II monuments in Soviet Russia, which have been the subject of Aaron Cohen's study4. In line with the findings of Karel Berkhoff’s book5, Brunstedt shows how the war time propaganda continued to influence Soviet culture after 1945.

The author concentrates his attention on the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and pays only secondary attention to the creation of war myths in other Soviet republics, such as Kazakhstan and Ukraine. That is why the topics of the 800th jubilee celebration of the founding of Moscow in 1947 (pp. 102–110), the attempts to combine commemoration of the Patriotic War with Napoleon near Moscow in 1812 with the “Great Patriotic War” of 1941–45 (pp. 209–212), the efforts to erect the “Boundary of Glory” complex near Moscow (pp. 197–209), and the 600th anniversary of victory over the Mongols at the Battle of Kulikovo Field in the commemoration of 1980 (pp. 242–253) occupy a central place in his study as these are poignant examples of how Russocentric and pan-Soviet/internationalist tendencies were intertwined.

The Soviet Myth of World War II. Patriotic Memory and the Russian Question in the USSR offers great insights into the complexity of creating the myth of World War II as a crucial unifying factor in the USSR and for the emergence of a Soviet identity. However, the book deals with a high-level perspective and focuses on the examples of specific individuals and organizations, but it does not provide information on the reception of these two tendencies by the wider population or Red Army veterans. The relationship between the two narratives (Russocentric vs. pan-Soviet/internationalist) in other Soviet Republics still deserves further research, as it can bring a more detailed and complete picture of the creation of World War II cult in the whole of the USSR. The book is an essential foundation for future research on the development of the Soviet cult of World War II and its continuation in the newly established countries that gained their independence after the collapse of communism.

Notes:
1 Amir Weiner, Making Sense of War. World War II and the Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution, Princeton 2001.
2 Nina Tumarkin, The Living and the Dead. The Rise and Fall of the Cult of World War II in Russia, New York 1995; Nina Tumarkin, The Story of a War Memorial, in: Carol Garrard / John Garrard (eds.), World War 2 and the Soviet People, London 1993, pp. 125–146.
3 Malte Rolf, Soviet Mass Festivals, 1917–1991, Pittsburgh 2013.
4 Aaron J. Cohen, War Monuments, Public Patriotism, and Bereavement in Russia, 1905–2015, London 2020.
5 Karel C. Berkhoff, Motherland in Danger. Soviet Propaganda during World War II, Cambridge, Mass. 2012.