from History and Memory Volume 13, Number 2Moscow's Victory Park
A Monumental Change*NURIT SCHLEIFMAN
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Arriving in Moscow from the west, following in the footsteps of the Poles in the seventeenth century, Napoleon in 1812 and the Germans in the summer of 1941, one is confronted by the capital's "Park pobedy" (Victory Park). On entering Kutuzov Avenue, only the dark cupola of the War Museum, topped by a spear-like needle can be seen (figure 1). In ancient times, though, the westward highway from the capital passed over that site, and travelers entering the city or leaving it would stop on Poklonnaia gora (Prostration Hill), turning toward the city and bowing down in reverence to Holy Moscow and its saints. Russia projects onto this place the memory of its fateful moments in a succession of Western assaults. It was there, on this hill, that in May 1610 the hetman Stanislas Zolkiewskii received a delegation of the Muscovite boyars before entering the Kremlin to crown Dmitrii the False—soon to be expelled by a popular uprising. After the indecisive battle of Borodino (26 August 1812),1 the Grande Armée advanced as far as the outskirts of the Russian capital. There, from Poklonnaia gora, Napoleon saw the city for the first time, and "fell in love with her," "waiting in vain for a delegation to hand him the keys to the city." Not far away the decision had been taken to reject the French offer of surrender, evacuate Moscow instead and continue the struggle that eventually brought victory.2
Immediately after the war, in 1818, a statue was erected at the center of Red Square depicting Prince Dmitrii Pozharskii and Kuzma Minin, a Nizhni-Novgorod butcher who had led the popular army that had driven the Poles out of Moscow a century earlier. The fact that the monument was installed so soon after the 1812 war created a historical connection between the two events: Russia's heroism in the face of foreign invaders aiming for its heart—Holy Moscow. On the twenty-seventh anniversary of the battle, Borodino was elevated to the status of a national memorial in a ceremony of great splendor honored by the presence of the tsar. At the gates of Moscow where the Old Mozhaisk Highway terminated, a victory arch was built and the road that continued into the city was named after the famous field marshal Prince Kutuzov. The battle of Borodino entered the Russian memory as a heroic victory, and Poklonnaia gora with its immediate surroundings became associated with it, and therefore with the Polish invasion too.
Maurice Halbwachs has drawn our attention to the connection between memory and territory and its dialectical effect. "The group not only transforms the space into which it has been inserted, but also yields and adapts to its physical surroundings" and "becomes enclosed within the framework it has built." The image of the external milieu as acquired by the group and the stable relationship with this environment "become paramount in the idea the group forms of itself, permeating every element of its consciousness, moderating and governing evolution."3 In other words, the group shapes its environment and is in turn shaped by it. Its memory and identity are conditioned by the group's image of the territory it has created, and this bilateral development engenders a continuing process of remembering and commemorating.
It seemed only natural that at the height of World War II, in 1942, after the German attack on Moscow had been warded off, a decision was taken to commemorate this event at that place.4 It took, however, more than half a century for the resolution to become a reality. When it finally did, in 1995, on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1941–1945 war, it took the form of the Victory Park, which unfolded a much grander story but in a new, much contested language. This is not surprising in view of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the deep political changes that followed. What seems amazing was the fact that the highly authoritarian Soviet regime, which monopolized the entire educational system, all communication media, museums and other cultural agencies, had been unable to construct the park and produce a comprehensive narrative of its greatest victory. Its much weaker successor, however, beset by severe political, economic and social problems succeeded where the previous regime had failed. It is not the creation of this park in itself that deserves attention. After all, nearly 70,000 war monuments had been built all over the USSR including the huge commemoration site in Stalingrad (1960–1967) and Leningrad's Victory Square (1975).5 What is important here is the difference in the meaning and status of that memory and consequently the forces at work in the process of commemoration. These forces seem to have played the decisive role in forestalling the construction of the monument under the Soviet regime while achieving it under the Russian Federation.
"The Great Patriotic War," as the 1941–1945 war is called, looms large in both the Soviet and Russian calendars. All the great battles are commemorated in schools, in the press and other media; there is no local museum, however small and remote, that does not feature a special display on those years in that region. For the Soviet regime this victory overshadowed even the Bolshevik Revolution, as the new Socialist Age whose coming had been loudly proclaimed in Stalin's 1936 Constitution. In this respect the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War differed from all previous victories, even surpassing the "Patriotic War" of 1812. It was turned into a major constitutive element of Soviet self-representation, as evidence for the concretely singular quality of the New Soviet Man, whose consciousness found its expression in this patriotic heroism.6
The official name of the war connoted in Soviet idiomatic speech its unique moral standing among other being used as the highest attribute of utmost importance, as in the phrases Velikii Lenin (the Great Lenin), Velikaia partiia (the Great Party),Nasha velikaia rodina (Our Great Homeland), Velikaia oktiabr'skaia sotsialisticheskaia revoliutsiia (The Great October Socialist Revolution).7 It also clearly differentiated between World War II and the Soviet part in it, not merely because the former had broken out earlier and without the participation of the USSR, but because it underlined the sudden, unwarranted fascist aggression against the peaceful and peace-loving Soviet people.
No less important was the emphasis on the role of the Soviet front in "the most important and decisive part of World War II, which drew into the storm of fire 61 states and 80 percent of the world population."
The war operations spread over the territory of 40 states as well as to the seas and oceans. The biggest and most strenuous battles took place in Europe, and this is where the armed forces of the USSR and Germany with her allies were engaged in a fight more fierce and sweeping than any witnessed before it.8The Great Patriotic War juxtaposed to the Patriotic War of 1812 was not only the culmination of patriotic heroism but also resistance against recurrent Western aggression. It focused, therefore, on the European arena where fighting ended in May 1945 notwithstanding the ongoing fighting in the Far East, which in fact was not inconsequential for the Soviet Union. Unlike the West, the USSR marked Victory Day on the ninth of May, and not on the eighth of May, the actual date on which Germany's capitulation had been signed. Although initially a mere technicality,9 it eventually became another sign that distinguished World War II from the Great Patriotic War. In the same vein as the designation "The Great Patriotic War," the notion of the "universal historical victory of the Soviet people and its armed forces"10 was singled out and underscored in tautological phrases that essentially served to reinforce the noun: triumf pobedy (the triumph of victory) or torzhestvo pobedy (victorious triumph).11 Such phrases connoted the completeness of the victory over the fascist-Hitlerite aggressor and obscured the truth about the tremendous Soviet losses in the first year of the war.
It should be noted that no statistical data concerning the correlation of forces were mentioned in the first 25 years after the war, not even in scientific classified works intended for the General Staff. Numbers were first mentioned during the second half of the 1960s, with the revival of Stalin and Stalinism, but the figures were manipulated in various ways to accord with Stalin's words in summer 1941 about the lack of armor and aviation, in order to demonstrate Soviet inferiority vis-à-vis the Germans.12 It was only in 1988 and 1989 that the first articles appeared showing that the sides had been evenly matched and that, with regard to tanks, the numbers had even tended to favor the Soviets.13
This colossal narrative had to encompass highly complex situations in constantly changing political circumstances. And although memory is versatile and subjective, susceptible to manipulations according to current political interests, it could hardly accommodate the frequently alternating power relations in the Soviet leadership. The present article, then, deals with the memory of a tremendous victory, charged with the most important ideological meanings, embedded in and conditioned by a certain environment, whose commemoration met with unexpected difficulties. It looks into the interrelations between memory and commemoration in the particular Soviet and Russian circumstances.
THE SAGA OF COMMEMORATION
The decision to establish a Victory Park on Poklonnaia gora was taken in 1947, and subsequently a cornerstone was laid. These beginnings were soon to be curbed as Stalin, intending to resubjugate the victorious and beloved army to the party's control, demoted the extremely popular Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgii Zhukov to a minor military position in Odessa and purged his close associates. Moreover, the Cold War was burgeoning along with Stalin's "anticosmopolitan campaign."
After Stalin's death, Zhukov was reinstated by Khrushchev and made minister of defense and member of the Politburo. In 1955 he appealed to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CC CPSU) noting that since the end of the Great Patriotic War, in the entire Soviet Union no sizable victory monument had been erected, "capable of expressing the great feats of the Soviet People and its army." Zhukov emphasized this failure in contrast to other People's Democracies and the Chinese People's Republic. He suggested, therefore, constructing five such monuments in Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Odessa and Sevastopol, underlining their importance in "commemorating the fallen Soviet fighters," in "educating our people, in particular the youth, about the glorious military traditions of the Soviet armed forces,"14 and notably omitting the party's role in the war. His suggestion with regard to Moscow was soon endorsed, and a special commission was appointed in 1956 to draft a proposal for the Central Committee's Secretariat.15
Already by 10 June that same year the commission submitted a proposal, which included its conception of the monument. It mentioned "a monumental spacious composition," a "Hall of Glory" of up to 2,000 square meters, a special building for panoramic battle scenes and a "Monument of Glory." In association with the German assault it recommended that the entrance to the park be from Kutozov Avenue. It also suggested announcing an all-Union open architectural contest, with competing projects to be displayed at the Moscow Central Exhibition Hall on 9 May 1957, as part of the events of the twelfth Victory Day. Members of the jury would be representatives of the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Culture, the Party Executive Committee of the City of Moscow (Mosgorispolkom), as well as prominent specialists in the arts.16
It was only on 24 May 1957, however, that the CC Secretariat adopted the resolution and transferred it for confirmation by the CC Presidium.17 A week later the USSR Council of Ministers added its approval,18 as did the Central Committee. In view of the slow bureaucratic procedure the monument's inauguration was delayed until the victory's fifteenth anniversary, on 9 May 1960, and the contest was scheduled to be held between 1 October 1957 and 1 April 1958.
While the proposal was circulating back and forth through the echelons, Khrushchev abruptly stripped its initiator of his power, notwithstanding Zhukov's support throughout 1955–56 and his success in preventing Khrushchev's ousting at the CC Plenary Session in early 1957. The direct reason for this sudden fall was said to be the Marshal's objection to Khrushchev's extensive de-Stalinization launched with his famous "Secret Speech." The contest did, however take place in 1958. More than 150 projects were submitted, but the chairman of the 22-member jury, the president of the Art Academy, concluded that "no project sufficiently expressed the triumphant victory, the idea of the feat that had been accomplished by the Soviet people and its army." He suggested holding a second, closed, contest, i.e. among certain, selected architecture collectives.19
Another year passed until a day before the fourteenth anniversary of Victory Day, on 8 May 1959, the CC under Khrushchev's chairmanship took a decision to continue the work on the projected Victory Monument.20 A similar decision was made by the CC a year later and signed on that same day by the Council of Ministers.21 In response to these decisions, the Central Committee's Construction Section proposed to entrust the project to the Architect Evgenii Vutechich, who had constructed Treptov Park, the Soviet Military Cemetery in Berlin. The final project was to be submitted by 15 November 1960 and construction completed by the fiftieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.22 In December 1961, more than six years after the initial decisions, the Central Committee urged the Secretariat to take measures for speeding up the work on the project following the discussion on Vutechich's first draft proposal.23
This proposal envisaged a complex of sculptures and buildings spread over the entire site, which would include as one of its most important features a grandiose sculpture of the Victorious People. This idea was met with general approval at the discussion at the Ministry of Culture. There was disagreement as to which of the great victorious battles should be commemorated, among them the destruction of the much-vaunted Kwantung army, which Minister of Culture Ekaterina Furtseva wanted to exclude and Vutechich insisted on keeping, and "banner" monuments whose "figurative characteristics" needed, according to Furtseva, more precise definition. Another debate concerned the point in the park most favorable for viewing the monument, and how it could be designed to fit the unique Russian landscape.24 These conclusions were reached just in time for Khrushchev's deposition in October 1964. Together with him went Furtseva.
In January 1968 suggestions were made to move the monument to the island in Moskva River opposite the Kremlin wall. Vutechich managed to make two sketches and pass away. Not until January 1975 was the matter raised again, when the Party Committee of Moscow City (Mosgorkom) and Mosgorispolkom submitted a memorandum to the Central Committee, complaining that so many years had passed since the laying of the cornerstone with no practical results. They asked that the Ministry of Culture be urged to speed up its decisions, "which are extremely important for the Soviet capital" and requested that the former location on Poklonnaia gora be retained.25 About a week later the Minister of Culture Petr Demichev responded, recalling that for five years, from 1963, the project had been reviewed by the CC when suddenly, in January 1968 a suggestion had been made to move the memorial's location from Poklonnaia gora to the island opposite the Kremlin. But since the question had not been completely settled the matter had been delayed and then, following Vutechich's death, completely abandoned. If, however, the Mosgorkom's and Mosgorispolkom's proposal was accepted he deemed it expedient to hold a closed commissioned contest.26
Nine days later President Leonid Brezhnev was already taking the matter into his hands. A new contest was announced and the winners were the sculptor Nikolai Tomskii, the architects L. G. Goloubovskii and A. P. Korabel'nikov and the artist Iurii Korolev. Therefore, on 13 January 1975 the Central Committee's Cultural Section suggested accepting their project. It included a huge ensemble of a group of granite sculptures, "The Victorious People," about 15 meters high around a 60-meter-high "Victorious Lenin Banner" made of red cement with Lenin's bas-relief on it and a shining ruby star on top. Bronze group sculptures—"Going to the Front," "Communists Forward!" "The People's Avengers," "The Liberating Mission of the Soviet Army," "All to the Front," "Bread for the Fatherland," "The Meeting of Victors" and "In the Name of Peace"—would be set in a semicircle around the monument. A white stone building, the Great Patriotic War Museum, would stand at the edge of the central area. It would house the Flag of Victory in a crystal case and include a Hall of Glory with niches displaying busts of statesmen and the greatest commanders. The names of the "Heroes of the USSR" and all the decorated soldiers would be carved on the marble walls. Among the other halls of the museum would be a Memory Hall with an eternal flame at its center, an art gallery dedicated to themes connected with the war and portraits of its heroes, and a special place for six dioramas of the war's greatest battles.27 The CC Secretariat gave its consent, but suddenly no budget was left for its realization. All finances were needed for the forthcoming Moscow Olympic Games.
On 11 February 1983 the Politburo, now under Iurii Andropov's leadership, again reviewed the matter and scheduled a new final deadline. But Andropov soon died, as did his successor Nikolai Chernenko not long afterwards, and thus in mid-August 1986 it was Mikhail Gorbachev's turn to look into the matter. But now, at the time of the newly proclaimed Glasnost' and Perestroika, the media entered the game and started wondering what was being built and where all the money had gone to.
On 14 August 1986 the Central Committee decided to announce a new contest for the main monument "taking into consideration public and specialists' opinion."28 A new open all-Union contest was announced.29 It took place between 15 January and 15 February 1987, with 384 projects being submitted and displayed in Moscow's Main Exhibition Hall. The RSFSR unions of artists, architects and writers held open public debates. War veterans and journalists took an active part in the discussion, and 145,000 people visited the exhibition and left 37,925 personal opinions.30 Exhibit no. 206, by the sculptor Vladimir Klykov, drew special attention. His idea to use Russian Orthodox Church architectural motifs for the main monument aroused sharp controversy. His ardent supporters, members of the "Pamiat'" association, took turns in guarding this project while denouncing other tendencies as "anti-Russian" and "Jewish-Masonic."31 They demanded that the contest be stopped and that project no. 206 be used as a basis for the further development of the monument, claiming that it expressed the idea of Russia's "historical continuity, humanism and peacemaking mission."32 The jury, however, was not impressed. Praising the public's great civic and patriotic interest, it noted that "the multifaceted theme of the monument had not found complete artistic expression" in any of the projects.33 Exhibit no. 206 was rejected by the jury as "lacking the idea of the triumph of socialism over fascism, the universal meaning of this triumph and its origins in Soviet patriotism and socialist internationalism." By using Russian church architectural motifs, the project lent itself to nationalist interpretation only.34
This decision touched off a stormy debate between the art critic Nikita Voronov and 28 litterateurs who signed an open letter in the nationalistic-oriented Nash sovremennik (Our contemporary) in response to an article he had written in Literaturnaia Rossiia (Literary Russia). Voronov had broached the question why only the Russian tradition found expression in the monument whereas the entire Soviet people had achieved the victory in the Great Patriotic War. He had suggested urging artists from the Union republics to take a more active role in the contest and perhaps even give it an international character.35 The letter's signatories replied by blaming the jury for what they considered to be an anti-Russian bias. They rejected the antireligious argument by claiming that the erection of churches as monuments signifying military victories had been a popular and not a Christian tradition, characterized Voronov's question as "blasphemous" and were scandalized by his suggestion: "If that's the case, the meaning is that you can have anybody you like, even the Vikings—only no RussiansÖ no 'belfry' (kolokol'nia), no 'bell' (kolokol) and no other symbols of Russian history and Russian culture."36
Although this group represented just a small minority, the party was much concerned about the attempt to appropriate its sacred memory as foreboding a possible undermining of both its political control and the integrity of the Soviet Union. Admittedly, the traditional Communist position was no less nationalistic despite its internationalist rhetoric. But the Russian Orthodox religious bent threatened to strip the Soviet narrative of its most profound legitimacy and turn it over to the church on the heavily charged pretext of "historical continuity." Indeed, aware of the rising nationalist moods, not only among the Russians but most disturbingly in the Baltic republics, the Ukraine and Belorussia, the party's leadership could not dispense with its "socialist internationalism." At the same time it condemned the attempt to pit all-Soviet internationalism and Russian nationalism against each other.37 Determined to fight back the party resorted to its traditional means: the editor of Nash sovremennik was invited to the Central Committee Sections where he was advised to be more careful with his publications. The Propaganda and Cultural Sections decided also to make use of the party mouthpieces, Pravda and Sovetskaia kul'tura, to join in this campaign.38
By that time it was already clear that projects like that of Tomskii and his group were no longer feasible and that concessions were needed with regard to the party's absolute grip on the project and its content. If earlier no proposal could well enough express the complex multifaceted meaning of the monument, now no such monument seemed acceptable. The Propaganda and Cultural Sections went as far as consenting to the demand for an elected public council to watch over the jury and the expenses. They did, however, insist on the ideas of Soviet patriotism, socialist internationalism and the triumph of the forces of social progress.39 On the other hand, for the first time a suggestion was made to limit the theme of the Soviet people's victory to the museum and free the monument of its heavy ideological burden. The issue was broached in a letter to Gorbachev by the chief architect of GiproNIIaviaprom (State Project of Industrial Aviation Scientific Research), V. M. Shkuratok, who was neither a party member nor even a member of the USSR Union of Architects. Gorbachev transferred the letter to Aleksandr Iakovlev, the secretary of the party's Central Committee, and to Lev Zaikov, the secretary of Mosgorkom, who in general supported the idea.40
On 16 July 1987 the Politburo again looked into the matter and decided to announce a new all-Union contest for the main monument and the surrounding site. A decision was reached to use the building at the site as a Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War and to continue with the plans for the park.41 The contest's first round took place between 1 September 1987 and 1 January 1988. This time 470 projects were displayed at the Main Exhibition Hall, and ten proposals were chosen for the contest's second round, which took place on 23 February 1989. During February and March the projects were exhibited again. A third round was scheduled for 15 November 1989, during which exhibits no. 1 by Klykov and no. 10 by T. Nekrasov emerged as the winners and both were commissioned for the monument.
On 14 November 1989 the CC Secretariat adopted a resolution to speed up the construction of the memorial complex on Poklonnaia gora. A decision was taken to complete most of the park by May 1990, and the museum by 1 January 1993. The opening of the entire complex was scheduled for the fiftieth anniversary of Victory Day.42 The timetable was indeed kept, but the memorial complex was destined for a different end under a new regime, following the disintegration of the USSR in December 1991.
The debate over the monument's church architecture was carried over into the Russian Federation until Moscow's mayor, Iurii Luzhkov, brought his favorite sculptor Zurab Tsereteli to plan it, and a decision was finally reached to construct on the site a Rusian Orthodox church, a mosque and a synagogue. In 1993, Victory Day was celebrated for the first time on Poklonnaia gora, and for the fiftieth anniversary the complex was finally ready amidst continuing public controversy.
THE STRUGGLE OVER MEMORY
What we actually witness in this almost half-century-long process is what David Thelen described as "the struggle for possession and interpretation of memory" which "is rooted among the conflict and interplay of social, political and cultural interests and values in the present"43—in other words, "memory work," which is embedded in "power relations that determine what is remembered (or forgotten), by whom, and for what end."44 These explanations apply to collective memory as a broad phenomenon that includes commemoration as its integral part. In our case, however, the problem seemed to be of commemoration within a seemingly agreed upon memory, a memory that had inspired hundreds of filmmakers and book writers, each of whom received in turn official sanction. Although this narrative had remained essentially the same since Khrushchev's de-Stalinization, its commemoration met with numerous obstacles. It was only after 1989 that the official war narrative was seriously challenged for the first time and from outside the party, but curiously this moment constituted the turning point in the long history of Poklonnaia gora.
What, in fact, happened in that year was the entrance of the public as a new factor into a subject that had been doomed to failure as long as it had remained closed at the top of the party hierarchy under the former authoritarian Soviet regime. One of the important reasons was the key role that the Great Patriotic War played with regard to Soviet identity. Consequently, any proposed project had to meet the almost impossible challenge of representing this shining image through a colossal symbolic complex. We have seen that almost none of them ever met these expectations.
At the same time the project had to follow the movements of the political pendulum from Stalin's personality cult, to Khrushchev's de-Stalinization and relegation to oblivion, back to a partial re-Stalinization under Brezhnev and his own kind of personality cult. These changing shifts in power relations had to be resolved within the limits of the party's hierarchy and find their expression in a commemoration of utmost political importance. It should be noted that the Central Committee was not a monolithic body as its name may indicate. It contained a number of high and central party organs—the CC plenum, the Politburo and the CC Secretariat, the Central Committee's apparatus, many departments and sections and subsections. They all exerted their own concrete power on the political administration and decision making, especially in periods of ideological changes and contradictions such as during Khrushchev's Thaw.45 Unlike monuments such as those in Stalingrad or Leningrad, the Victory Park was not dedicated to one particular battle but to a comprehensive narrative in which it was necessary to decide in advance what would be remembered and how, and what would be forgotten and why.
Notwithstanding the fact that the Soviet war narrative remained essentially stable, frequent changes occurred with regard to high commanders and statesmen that were to be included in or excluded from this narrative. These were the heroes whose busts were to fill the niches in the Hall of Glory and their portraits displayed in the art gallery. Their relative significance had to determine the representation of their military merits. These were not minor changes of details. Neither were they marginal aspects of the past. They inevitably had an influence on the attitude to the war (as in the different uses of statistics) and the image of the war hero (Stalin, the brilliant marshal, "The Heroic Soviet People," or just human beings allowed to be engaged in personal problems that could coexist with their Soviet ideology?). These questions could not but affect the political lessons and the ideological demands presented to society. While red tape had caused great delays in decision making, political vicissitudes occurring in the meantime cast doubt on earlier decisions, requiring renewed authorization, until finally public opinion helped decide the power relations within the party.
The first sign of this process appeared in 1988, with Shkuratok's letter to Gorbachev, which in fact had cut the Gordian knot by suggesting that the ideological message be transferred to the museum and the monument freed of it. As mentioned before, this idea came from outside the party apparatus. Gorbachev enlisted the support of his political allies, Alexander Iakovlev, secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, and Lev Zaikov, first secretary of Mosgorkom, and thus the way was paved for accepting this idea in the subsequent contest. We shall see later that after the disintegration of the USSR, the former ideological elements gave way to almost opposite, no less controversial ideas. The political circumstances, however, were completely different and the legitimacy of the authorities, attained by partial public support, was sufficient to carry out the plans despite the continuing controversy. The entrance of public opinion into the discussion concerning the park marked the change of focus from controlled commemoration to memory. It brought into play different memory groups characterized by ideological contradictions and torn between different political currents, which competed over the possession and interpretation of the war's memory—at first still under the guise of commemoration, but later through open and aggressive public debates. The open entrance of public opinion into the battlefield of memory made a conclusion possible. After the breakdown of the USSR the conflict assumed a new character, which challenged memory openly and directly.
Events in 1993 can provide us with an example of its effects. That year saw an especially acute power struggle in Russia. On 12 December the referendum over Boris Yeltsin's proposed Constitution was to take place. It was accompanied by bitter strife among his opponents—the nationalists and the various Communist groups, who had a majority in the Supreme Soviet—and the so-called democratic forces who supported Yeltsin's regime. The anti-Yeltsin groups joined forces in a "National Salvation Front" that earned them the pejorative nickname "red-browns," and they waged their campaign as a struggle between the executive and legislative powers. This conflict reached its culmination with the president's decree on the dispersal of the Supreme Soviet and the shelling of its residence in the White House, where Yeltsin's opponents were resisting the decree under the leadership of House Chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov and Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi.
The year 1993 was also the fiftieth anniversary of both the battle of Stalingrad and of the breaking of the siege of Leningrad. Therefore the Great Patriotic War played an even greater role than usual. The National Salvation Front was rallying around the memory of the war against Yeltsin personally as well as against what his regime stood for. The Soviet Union at its greatest hour was contrasted with the Russian Federation at its lowest, with its empty shops, hungry pensioners and war veterans and Russia's degrading dependence on "humanitarian aid" from the despised West. Yeltsin was presented as the chief culprit, who had single-handedly caused the disintegration of the USSR, brought a catastrophe on its economy, was licking the boots of the rich West and selling Russia out to foreign interests. In contrast, Stalin's memory rose to a long-forgotten popularity as the leader who had brought the Soviet Union to its greatest victories and glory.
On the forty-eighth anniversary of Victory Day, Pravda published across its front page a photo of Stalin in the midst of his chiefs of staff. The picture, epitomizing the very essence of the political strife, was accompanied by the following text:
While greeting each other on Victory Day we bow our heads in honor of the soldier, who marched through half of Europe, defended the great Soviet Union in horrid and unprecedented battles; the soldier, who was inspired by the love of his fatherland and the fraternity of nations and was therefore great and invincible.46
The language of war became the language of political conflict: "patriots" against "the power of darkness" who had divided society into "masters" and "powerless," who "had raised their hand against a superpower in an attempt to enslave Russia."47 At the height of the conflict, two days before the attack on the White House, Pravda called upon the army and militia to refuse to obey illegal commands "in the names of your fathers and forefathers, who fell on the battlefields of the fatherland."48 In this way the opposition appropriated the memory of the Great Patriotic War, presented Yeltsin and his regime as foreign conquerors and the conflict as a continuation of the war for the Soviet Union's liberation. Accordingly, it turned the famous war poster "The Motherland Calls" into a banner in its demonstrations (see figure 4 below).
Unwittingly, the media of the opposite political orientation reinforced this approach by publishing new data on the Great Patriotic War. An article entitled "The Known and Unknown Blockade" (of Leningrad), for instance, raised such questions as "Hitler took care of his soldiers, but Stalin?" "Who ate enough during the blockade?" "How many died of hunger?" Another article described "The High Cost of the Great Victory: How to Calculate Soviet Losses in WWII?"49 In the eyes of the veterans who proudly paraded their medals on memorial days, this information as well as the criticism on the way that the war had been managed undermined its memory, which always, by its very nature, "install[s] remembrance within the sacred."50 According to Maurice Halbwachs, collective memory is a way of belonging to a group that thinks in common about the past. "We maintain contact with that group and remain capable of identifying ourselves with it and merging our past with it." From that moment on "we never lose the habit and capacity to think and remember as a member of a group to which we all belong, to place ourselves in its viewpoint and employ the conceptions shared by its members."51 Consequently, exposing new painful truths about the past can be seen as sacrilegious, as a way of putting oneself outside the remembering group, excluding oneself from the common memory.
New data put the war in a new light that was further reinforced by themes that had never been mentioned in connection to it. On the fiftieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Nezavisimaia gazeta (Independent newspaper) wrote:
This was one of the first uprisings in the whole of Europe. Under its influence other uprisings in other ghettos took place as well as in the Treblinka and Sobibor death camps. The Jews had succeeded in tying up much of the enemy's force and thus weakened the German terror outside the ghetto walls and helped the Polish underground. This caused the Germans great concern since they were already busy with the preparation for the Citadel campaign and 75 percent of their supplies were being transferred via Poland. But first and foremost, the uprising had a tremendous moral influence, and although the Germans drowned it in blood they sustained a moral defeat.52
Such a story retells the war's narrative in a new way. It takes the older narrative out of its exclusive patriotic sphere and puts it in another context—in this case, Jewish of all things, which had previously drawn no attention, least of all as being heroic. Moreover, according to this narrative, this uprising had caused damage to the German war effort in the eastern front, which until then had been regarded as exclusively Soviet, as the arena of the Red Army's great feats.
A year later the same newspaper marked Victory Day with the main headline: "No One Will Change the Real Holiday. The Ninth of May Is Victory Day," but it added "however bitter, one must admit that for the USSR-Russia Victory meant salvation and the strengthening of totalitarianism." And it concluded: "Let us not forget that May 9th (in the Western tradition May 8th) is also a general victory of all the anti-Hitlerite coalition, which besides the USSR included first and foremost the USA, Great Britain and France. Our allies' soldiers also brought that victory."53 For the liberal press the victory had had not only positive results, and the Great Patriotic War became part of World War II with all its implications. Victory belonged to all, the Western powers were allies then as well as at present, since Gorbachev's declaration of the "common home" (obshchii dom) of Europe, and Russia was dependent on their assistance.54
This tendency to make the war part of the current political strife was evident on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle of Stalingrad. Sovetskaia Rossiia (Soviet Russia), the Supreme Soviet's organ, published a story of a war veteran standing in line for milk:
Four steps only were left to the Volga. Only four steps separated Russia from its end. Clenching their teeth the soldiers launched a counter-offensive. Today too they are clenching their teeth, in shame. In Stalingrad we understood that Russia's fate was hanging by a thread and we held to our weapons as long as we could. Today those hands that saved Russia are trembling from old age, illness and pain. Ivan Maksimovich Khlovistov is tormented by questions. He remembers a German diplomat who said during the war that Russians alone could defeat Russia, and he asks: What have we done to our great country? Why did we Russians, warriors and warriors' sons, not realize how we were being led from Perestroika . . . to the destruction of our home?55
A week later the paper continued in the same vein:
Twenty days and twenty nights lasted the baptism of the fighters of Stalingrad in this bloodbath. One hundred days and one hundred nights. We remember them all coming to the banks of the Volga on our memorial days. Fewer and fewer are left, and now on the fiftieth anniversary very few indeed. Will they arrive this time too, when they cannot afford the fares to the site of the battles? I am sure they will. They will come in spite of everything, because Stalingrad is their Mecca. In one of the towns of France there is a Stalingrad square. One of the main streets in Brussels is called "Stalingrad." Stalingrad exists in England and in other countries, but not in Russia. The lie about the red-browns is even more painful. We, who defeated the fascists and freed Europe of the brown plague, were branded "brown." Had our brothers in arms, buried in Mamaev Kurgan, known this they would have turned in their graves.56
The fiftieth anniversary of the battle was celebrated in Volgograd (the name given to Stalingrad after de-Stalinization) on 1–2 February 1993. Izvestiia reported that veterans had arrived from all parts of Russia. Foreigners came too, including Germans. The Supreme Soviet's president, Ruslan Khasbulatov, arrived on 31 January. Yeltsin decided not to come, and this was not surprising. He would have faced a hostile audience headed by his rival, while he, the president, would have epitomized in their eyes the complete opposite of the spirit of Stalingrad. He therefore delivered a broadcast in which he described Stalingrad's heroism as a turning point in the Great Patriotic War and in World War II. It was justly inscribed in golden letters in the annals of the twentieth century. But he compared Stalingrad's afflictions to the situation of present-day Russia and added that the victory of Stalingrad would be a source of inspiration to the coming triumph. He emphasized that the German war criminal had been sentenced in Nuremberg, and that a new generation was growing up in Germany that could not be blamed for that tragedy. "Today, Russia and Germany share interests that are based on fundamental moral and democratic values and a common interest in a European peace and stability throughout the world."57
Thus, Yeltsin created a direct link between Stalingrad and the struggle for Russia in his own days, between the great victory then and the victory to which he would eventually lead Russia. One could hardly imagine that the public, gathered in front of Volgograd City Hall on the morning of 1 February, would have found these words pleasing. At this fateful point in time Yeltsin could no in way permit himself to become embroiled in such a confrontation. Somewhat later, on 9 May, when Victory Day was first celebrated in the not-yet-completed Victory Park, Yeltsin and his entourage were seen walking to the rostrum where Khasbulatov was already standing. But half way to the stage he vanished into thin air, nobody knew where.58
Only after the showdown at the White House on 3–4 October 1993, following the dispersal of the Supreme Soviet, did Yeltsin take charge of the war memory too. Three months later, on the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Blockade of Leningrad, the 29th and 30th of January were declared in a presidential decree as an official holiday. A special budget was allocated for the festivities and all the Russian embassies abroad were ordered to hold official receptions. The local authorities in Moscow and St. Petersburg were called upon to participate in the government's preparations, in awarding grants to war veterans. The army was to hold a special salute and the central bank to issue a special commemorative medal.59
THE NEW SITE
Within two years the new regime had the park ready for opening. To a large extent it was based on the 1978 plan but with a substantial change of symbols. The building of the Great Patriotic War Museum had been constructed before 1993. Now the outside area was also completed. On both its flanks stood sculptures of equestrian Amazons blowing trumpets. At the front of the museum, on top of the hill, Tsereteli, the sculptor, placed the main monument—a one-ton metal obelisk in the form of a three-sided Russian bayonet, symbolizing the regular Soviet soldier. The surface of the obelisk was covered with a collage of several hundred bronze reliefs associated with famous military events. The obelisk is 141.8 meters high, to match the 1,418 days of the Great Patriotic War. Flying close to its top is Nike, the goddess of victory. A Victory Path runs from the park entrance to the obelisk past five large pools with towering fountains symbolizing the five years of World War II (September 1939–May 1945).
The Great Patriotic War Museum tells the history of the eastern front, but includes also joint Allied operations as well as the long-forgotten "Lend Lease" assistance from the West. It displays a variety of uniforms and weapons of all the parties in the war, Germany included. Besides the museum, the building also houses the Hall of Glory mentioned in all the many previous projects, and at its center the Victorious People in the image of a huge golden soldier (figure 2). On the walls of that circular hall the names of all decorated soldiers are carved in golden letters. Another important hall is that of Memory and Sorrow. Threads strung with thousands of glass beads represent tears, and at the center, instead of the eternal flame mentioned in the 1978 plan, there is a white marble sculpture of a mourning woman symbolizing Mother Russia with her dead son on her knees (figure 3).
As already mentioned, a Russian Orthodox Church, a mosque and a synagogue were built within the park, financed by donations. The construction of the church was in response to the demands voiced in the 1987 contest. It was explained as according with the popular Russian tradition of marking military victories by establishing chapels. The multinational Russian Federation, however, could not act as the Soviet Union or Tsarist Russia. Therefore, not traditionally but democratically, the two other temples were added. At the museum's side a special plot was allocated for stones on which prayers were carved in the languages of all the fighting parties, including Hebrew and Yiddish.
Notwithstanding the similarity to the 1978 plan, the memorial site has a character that is radically different from anything that could be thought of in the Soviet Union's narrative. It includes elements that were gradually introduced during the years of public debate. First and foremost the Great Patriotic War was represented as part of World War II, despite the understandable emphasis on the Soviet front. This connection becomes evident from the museum's exhibition, from the armor display along the paved ways of the park and most conspicuously from the tombstone plot which demonstrates the great number of peoples and nations that fell victim in this terrible war. The obelisk is indeed a purely Russian symbol, but there are five pools along the avenue leading to it, and not four as the number of years of the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945). All that, together with the three temples, is a blatant departure from the Soviet narrative.
Indeed, during the war Stalin made use of the Russian Orthodox Church in order to muster all the people's spiritual resources. But as soon as the war was over, the church was persecuted again. After the collapse of the USSR, and the central role that the church suddenly assumed in public life, its place of honor was restored. Moreover, Mother Russia is an ancient symbol but lacking concrete personification. In the Hall of Remembrance and Mourning she now appears in the image of the Pietý, a very far cry from Mother Russia as a simple Russian peasant woman in red surrounded by spears, as depicted on the Soviet war poster adopted by the opposition figure 4). A universal dimension was given to the site by the classical mythological images. In fact throughout the USSR statues of Greek gods can be seen in places of recreation, for instance, but never in a national context where the Soviet symbolic system was exclusively dominant.
It has already been noted that the debate over the Victory Park continued as long as the work continued. As late as 1993, when the idea to construct the three temples became known, Pravda published a sharp letter of protest. Its author, a professor of history, reviewed the long history of the park and made a special point of the general consensus that had always existed with regard to the commemoration of the Soviet people's victory. The Soviet people, he said, had been divided into fighters at the front and workers in the rear, the fighters had been divided into various armies but all had been united in the struggle against fascism.
The unity of the people is an essential central idea not only as a representation of the past but as a lesson for the present-day confusion. It occurred to nobody, neither during the Great Patriotic War nor later, to split its participants according to nationality—least of all according to their religion. But now, as the work on the monument approaches its end, an idea arose which distorted its main purpose—the people's unity in achieving that victory.
The writer's protest was especially bitter about the participation of foreign Muslim and Jewish institutions in the financing of the mosque and synagogue respectively. He saw in it the disgraceful habit that had recently taken root in Russia of asking for foreign assistance. Underlining a demand made by the Congress of Jewish Religious Institutions to put up a separate monument for "our Jewish compatriots" killed during the Great Patriotic War, the writer warned of the precedent that could affect other peoples in Russia. Concluding his letter he suggested constructing in the park a modest wall or an obelisk common to all peoples and religions, where everyone could pray, light a candle or lay flowers. This would coincide with the main idea of the site—"the common victory, the common memory and the common mourning, the common lesson to our contemporaries immersed in a complex of ethnic, religious and other conflicts, that only through common efforts can a worthy life be attained."60 In these arguments one can detect the principal issues of the political controversy of that time.
On 9 May 1994, Victory Day was again celebrated in the park. In contrast to the previous year President Yeltsin and Moscow's mayor Iurii Luzhkov were present. Early on that day, the Russian leaders and war veterans laid wreaths on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The veterans proceeded from there to the Victory Park on decorated trucks accompanied by brass bands. The opposition, on the other hand, moved back to town and organized a number of memorial ceremonies under the slogan "Away with Yeltsin! We will win!" Its spokesmen promised to reconstitute the Soviet Union already in the following year, on the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War.61
It is obvious that at issue was not a park but Russia's political future. While each of the various parties had different ideas about that future, they all looked back to the past in search of symbols for their respective visions. All of them strove to restore Russia's glorious past, whether as Imperial Orthodox, Red Communist or a liberal Westernized state. For each of them the Great Patriotic War was Russia's greatest moment, though for quite different reasons which set this war within opposing narratives. The park's role as a focus of this political struggle lies in the fact that commemoration is future oriented and, as a lieude mémoire in Pierre Nora's sense, is a potent instrument in shaping identity. In fact memory is a precondition for any sense of identity. John R. Gillis made this interrelation especially clear in his definition of identity as a sense of belonging to a determinate space, which transcends all internal differences in the formation of a singular nationhood whose historical roots can be traced back in time.62 The historical roots are precisely the stories that find their place in a coherent structure that is capable of shaping all narratives that had been or will be told. This structure is the collective memory. In the struggle over the Victory Park the authorities had won the upper hand, but the problem of Russian identity is still vacillating among many controversial symbols, and the last word has not yet been said.
NOTES
* I should like to thank my colleagues Boris Morozov, who provided me with some important details, and Deena Levanter, for her careful reading and helpful comments. I am especially grateful to Professor Albert Pavlovich Nenarokov of the Russian Independent Institute for Social and National Problems, Moscow, for his generous help and for providing me with essential documentation.
1. This prerevolutionary date is in the Julian calendar, in effect in Russia until 1918, and is 12 days behind the Gregorian calendar in the 19th century, and 13 in the 20th.
2. P. V. Sytin, Iz istorii moskovskikh ulits (From the history of Moscow's streets) (Moscow, 1948), 276–77.
3. Maurice Halbwachs, The Collective Memory, trans. Francis J. Ditter, Jr. and Vida Yazdi Ditter (New York, 1980), 130.
4. Muzei pobedy na Poklonnoi gore (The Victory Museum on Poklonnaia gora) (Moscow, n.d).
5. Velikaia Otechestvennaia voina, 1941–1945, Entsiklopediia (The Great Patriotic War, 1941–1945, Encyclopedia) (Moscow, 1980), 442.
6. V. M. Mokienko and T. G. Nikitina, Tolkovyi slovar' iazyka sovdepii (Dictionary of the Soviet official language) (St. Petersburg, 1998), 658.
7. Ibid., 77.
8. Mikhail Belov, Pobediteli i pobezhdennye (Victors and defeated) (Moscow, 1996), 3 (all translations from Russian are my own).
9. The "holiday of victory" was decreed by the presidium of the Supreme Soviet on 8 May 1945, i.e. on the very day of the German capitulation, and therefore could be celebrated no earlier than the following day. In other countries, where V-Day was officially designated only later, it was celebrated on the eighth of May.
10. "Postanovlenie TsK KPSS 'O sooruzhenii pamiatnika pobedy v g. Moskve'" (Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CC CPSU] "On the construction of a victory monument in the city of Moscow"), 31 May 1957, Istoricheskii arkhiv, no. 3 (1995): 88. A considerable selection of the documents concerning the Victory Park were published by Z. D. Vodopiannova, T. D. Domracheva and V. Iu. Afiani (members of the Center for the Preservation of Contemporary Documentation where the originals are kept) in this issue of Istoricheskii arkhiv (Historical archive).
11. "Zapiska MGK i Ministerstva kul'tury SSSR" (Memorandum of MGK [Moscow City Party Committee] and the USSR Ministry of Culture), 9 June 1987, ibid., 97; "Pis'mo sotrudnikov Tsentral'nogo muzeia Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny 1941–1945gg Presidentu SSSR M. S. Gorbachevu" (Letter of staff of the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945 to USSR President M. S. Gorbachev), 14 Aug. 1990, ibid., 103, 107 n. 16.
12. N. G. Pavlenko, Byla voina (There was a war) (Moscow, 1994), 208–9.
13. See articles by B. Petrov in Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, no. 7 (1988); A. A. Gurov, ibid., no. 8 (1988); V. A. Semidetkii, ibid., no. 4 (1989); A. Iakushevskii, ibid.,no. 5 (1989), cited in Pavlenko, Byla voina, 209–10.
14. "Pis'mo ministra oborony SSSR marshala G. K. Zhukova" (Letter of USSR Minister of Defense Marshal G. K. Zhukov), 14 June 1955, Istoricheskii arkhiv, no. 3 (1995): 85–86.
15. "Postanovlenie Sekretariata TsK KPSS 'O sooruzhenii v g. Moskve pamiatnika v oznamenovanie Vsemirno-istoricheskoi pobedy sovetskogo naroda i ego armii v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine 1941–1945gg." (Resolution of the Secretariat of the CC CPSU "On the construction in the city of Moscow of a monument to mark the universal-historical victory of the Soviet people and its army in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945), ibid., 86.
16. "Zapiska komissii TsK KPSS o sooruzhenii v Moskve pamiatnika Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine" (Memorandum of the Commission of the CC CPSU on the construction in Moscow of a monument of the Great Patriotic War), 10 July 1956, ibid., 86–88.
17. "O sooruzhenii pamiatnika Pobedy v g. Moskve" (On the construction of a victory monument in the city of Moscow), 24 May 1957, ibid., 106 n. 15.
18. Resolution No. 636, 31 May 1957, ibid.
19. Istoricheskii arkhiv, no. 3 (1995): 106 n. 16.
20. "O dal'neishikh rabotakh po proektirovaniiu pamiatnika Pobedy v Moskve" (On further work in the planning of a victory monument in Moscow), 8 May 1959, ibid., 107 n. 17.
21. "O razrabotke proekta na sooruzhenie pamiatnika Pobedy v g. Moskve" (On the development of the project for constructing a victory monument in the city of Moscow), 21 April 1960, ibid.
22. "Zapiska Otdela stroitel'stva TsK KPSS" (Memorandum of the CC CPSU construction section), 6 July 1960, ibid.,89.
23. "O proektakh pamiatnika V. I. Leninu i pamiatnika v chest' Pobedy v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine 1941-1945 gg. v Moskve" (On plans for a monument to V. I. Lenin and a monument in honor of the victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 in the city of Moscow), 28 Dec. 1961, ibid., 107 n. 24.
24. "Zapiska Ministersva kul'tury SSSR" (Memorandum of the USSR Ministry of Culture), 26 June 1963; "Pis'mo rukovoditelia avtorskogo kollektiva skulptora E. V. Vutechich" (Letter of leader of the authors' collective, the sculptor E. V. Vutechich), 27 June 1963, ibid., 90–91.
25. "Zapiska Moskovskogo gorkoma KPSS i Mosgorispolkoma" (Memorandum of Moscow gorkom and Mosgorispolkom), 14 Jan. 1975, ibid., 92.
26. "Zapiska Ministerstva kul'tury SSSR" (Memorandum of the USSR Ministry of Culture), 22 Jan. 1975, ibid., 93.
27. "Pamiatnik pobedy" (Victory monument), in Velikaia Otechestvennaia voina 1941–1945, 525.
28. "O pamiatnike Pobedy v g. Moskve" (On the victory monument in Moscow), 14 Aug. 1986, Istoricheskii arkhiv, no. 3 (1995):109 n. 84.
29. "Postanovlenie TsK KPSS 'O provedenii novogo Vsesoiusnogo otkrytogo konkursa na pamiatnik pobedy v g. Moskve'" (Resolution of the CC CPSU on holding a new all-union contest for the victory monument in the city of Moscow), 16 July 1987, ibid., 96.
30. "Zapiska MGK KPSS i Ministerstva kul'tury SSSR," (Memorandum of the Moscow gorkom and the USSR Ministry of Culture), 9 June 1987, ibid., 97.
31. "Pamiat'" (Memory) was initially a historical and literary society devoted to Russian national culture in contrast to the idea of internationalism. In 1985–1986 it began to emphasize Russian national problems, Russian patriotism and, mainly, Russia's alleged enemies—Zionists and freemasons. From the end of 1986 the society became the Pamiat' Patriotic Association, a change that reflected its transformation into a political group openly professing nationalism and anti-Semitism. See Vera Kaplan and Boris Morozov, "Toward a Multi-Party System, 1985–93," in Nurit Schleifman, ed, Russia at a Crossroads: History, Memory and Political Change, Cummings Center Series (London, 1998), 183.
32. "Zapiska otdelov propagandy i kul'tury TsK KPSS 'Ob otkrytom pis'me gruppy pisatelei v zhurnale 'Nash sovremenik' s soglasiem sekretarei TsK KPSS'" (Memorandum of the propaganda and culture sections of the CC CPSU "On the open letter of a group of writers in the journal Nash sovremennik with the agreement of the the CC CPSU Secretary"), 25 June 1987, Istoricheskii arkhiv, no. 3 (1995): 98.
33. "Zapiska MGK KPSS i Ministra kul'tury SSSR," 9 June 1987, ibid., 97.
34. "Zapiska otdelov propagandy i kul'tury TsK KPSS 'Ob otkrytom pis'me'," ibid., 98.
35. Literaturnaia Rossiia, 20 Feb.1987, ibid.
36. Nash Sovremmenik, no. 6 (1987), ibid., 99.
37. "Zapiska otdelov propagandy i kul'tury TsK KPSS 'Ob otkrytom pis'me'."
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. See "Zapiska sekretaria TSK KPSS A. N. Iakovleva i pervogo sekretaria MGK KPSS L. N. Zaikova general'nomu sekretariu TsK KPSS M. S. Gorbachevu" (Memorandum of Secretary of the CC CPSU A. N. Iakovlev and First Secretary of the Mosgorkom L. N. Zaikov to General Secretary of the CC CPSU M. S. Gorbachev), 14 Oct. 1988, ibid., 100.
41. Ibid.
42. "Postanovlenie Secretariata TsK KPSS 'Ob uskorenii stroitel'stva Memorial'nogo kompleksa na Poklonnoi gore v g. Moskve'" (Resolution of the CC CPSU Secretariat on speeding up the construction of the memorial complex on Poklonnaia gora in the city of Moscow), 14 Nov. 1989, ibid., 102.
43. David Thelen, "Memory and American History", Journal of American History 75 (1989): 1127.
44. John R. Gillis, "Memory and Identity: The History of a Relationship," in idem, ed., Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton, 1991), 3.
45. V. Iu. Afiani, "Ideologicheskie komissii TsK KPSS (1958–1964 gg.) v mekhanizme upravleniia kul'tury" (The ideological commissions of the CC CPSU in the mechanism of directing culture), in idem et al., eds., Kul'tura i Vlast' ot Stalina do Gorbacheva (Culture and power from Stalin to Gorbachev), volume entitled Ideologicheskie komissii TsK KPSS 1958–1964: Dokumenty. (The ideological commissions of the CC CPSU, 1958–1964: Documents) (Moscow, 1998), 24.
46. "Zhivym boitsam pochet, a pavshim—slava vechnaia" (Honor to the living warriors and eternal glory to the fallen), Pravda, 8 May 1993.
47. "Spasem svoiu stranu—teper' ili nikogda: Obrashchenie patrioticheskoi intelligentsii k narodu" (Let us save our country—now or never: An appeal from the patriotic intelligentsia to the people), Pravda, 30 Sept. 1993.
48."K vam syny otchizny" (To you sons of the fatherland), Pravda, 1 Oct. 1993.
49. "Blokada izvestnaia i neizvestnaia," Izvestiia, 22 Jan. 1994; "Dorogaia tsena Velikoi pobedy," ibid., 8 May 1993; see also "Gotovil li general'nyi shtab Krasnoi Armii uprazhdaiushchii udar po Germanii?" (Did the general staff of the Red Army prepare a parting strike against Germany?), Nezavisimaia gazeta, 28 Sept. 1993.
50. Pierre Nora, "Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire," Representations, no. 26 (Spring 1989): 9.
51. Halbwachs, The Collective Memory, 25–26.
52. "Boi bez nadezhdy: K 50-letiiu v Varshavskom getto" (Battle without hope: On the 50th anniversary in the Warsaw ghetto), Nezavisimaia gazeta, 16 April 1993.
53. "Nastoiashchii prazdnik ne otmenit nikto. 9 maia—den' Pobedy," ibid., 7 May 1994.
54. The "common European home" refers to Gorbachev's new economic policy, his attempts to integrate the USSR into the global economy and open it to European cooperation. See Peter J. Stavrakis, "Gorbachev's 'Common European Home' and the Policy of Reform," in Debora Anne Palmieri, ed., The USSR and the World Economy: Challenges for the Global Integration of Soviet Markets under Perestroika (Westport, CT, 1992).
55. "Za povod Stalingrada—ni shagu nazad i nash rubezh" (About Stalingrad—one step away from our border), Rossiiskaia gazeta, 21 Jan. 1993.
56. Mamaev Kurgan is the vast Tatar burial mound at the center of the city where the fiercest battles took place and which was completely destroyed. "Liudi do sikh por sobiraiut strashnyi urazhai voiny" (People to this day are reaping the terrible harvest of war), ibid., 30 Jan. 1993.
57. "Obrashchenie Borisa Eltsina" (Boris Yeltsin's address), Izvestiia, 2 Feb. 1993.
58. "Na Poklonnoi gore sobralos' sem' tysiach chelovek" (Seven thousand people gathered on Poklonnaia gora), Segodnia, 12 May 1993.
59. "Ukaz o prazdnovanii 50-letiia so dnia polnogo osvobozhdeniia Leningrada ot fashistskoi blokady" (Decree on the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the fascist blockade), Rossiiskaia gazeta, 29 Dec 1993.
60. "Iabloko razdora na Poklonnoi gore" (The apple of discord on Poklonnaia gora), Pravda, 29 Dec. 1993.
61. "Den' pobedy kazhdyi otmetil po-svoemu" (Everyone celebrated Victory Day in his own way), Nezavisimaia gazeta, 11 May 1994.
62. Gillis, "Memory and Identity," 4.
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