Myth Making in the Soviet Union and Modern Russia

Vicky Davis received her PhD from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London (UCL), and currently works as a freelance educational consultant and researcher. Davis has worked with a number of leading academics in her role as a researcher, including Roger Moorhouse on The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin (2014) and for Polly Jones (Associate Professor of Russian Literature at the University of Oxford) on several Soviet history projects. She has also published and presented in peer-reviewed journals, edited collections and at international conferences, and there is a section dedicated to her research on myth and war memory at the State Historical Museum in Novorossiisk, Russia.

Preface

List of Illustrations

Introduction: The Myth of Malaia zemlia

1.What is a War Myth?

Part 1 War Correspondence and Memoirs: The Construction of the Myth through Literature37
2.A Myth is Born: War Correspondence from Malaia zemlia
3.Early Memoir Literature
4.Brezhnev's War Memoirs
5.Beyond Brezhnev and Brezhnevism

Part 2 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 Town Again

Part 3 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 4 Meetings of Generations: Teaching the Young to Remember
13.Genes and Generations: Informal Transmission of Memory in the Family
14.The Educational Role of Veterans
15.Formal Education of the Younger Generation

Conclusion: Looking Back to the Future

Appendix 1 Some Comments about Novorossiisk
Appendix 2 Interviewing Subjects in Novorossiisk
Select Bibliography