The Making of a Dominant Myth: The Second World War and the Construction of Political Identities within the Soviet Polity

Weiner, Amir

doi:10.2307/131868

Cited by 39 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…On the positive side, they facilitate social cohesion and hold back alienation by helping groups and individuals feel that they are part of a greater whole (Weiner 1996). The downside is of course that they serve to provide the ideational foundations for the exclusion of groups and individuals deemed to be fundamentally Other.…”

Section: Political Myth and Collective Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Eternal Great Power Meets the Recurring Times of Troubles: Twin Political Myths in Contemporary Russian Politics

Petersson¹

2013

European Cultural Memory Post-89

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Section: Political Myth and Collective Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Eternal Great Power Meets the Recurring Times of Troubles: Twin Political Myths in Contemporary Russian Politics

Petersson¹

2013

European Cultural Memory Post-89

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“…In contrast to events such as the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War, events that have been fundamentally reemplotted in post-Soviet official history (Wertsch 2002), WWII has undergone less of a transformation in Russian collective memory. The most plausible reason for this is that it serves as a ''dominant myth'' (Weiner 1996) that played a central role in Soviet life and continues to be positively viewed in post-Soviet Russia.…”

Section: A Natural Laboratory For Collective Memory Studies: Russian mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Narrative Organization of Collective Memory

Wertsch

2008

Ethos

171

144

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Collective memory is analyzed from the perspective of narrative organization. Specifically, narratives provided by a sociocultural context, especially the modern state, are examined in their capacity to serve as cultural tools for members of a collective as they recount the past. The power of these tools to shape collective remembering is examined with the help of a distinction between specific narratives and schematic narrative templates. The former include information about specific dates, places, actors, and so forth, whereas the latter are abstract forms of narrative representation and typically shape several specific narratives. The utility of these notions is assessed by examining the “expulsion‐of‐foreign‐enemies” schematic narrative template that shapes much of Russian collective memory, both during the Soviet period and post‐Soviet periods. [collective memory, narrative, schematic narrative template, Russia]

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“…Even when everyday experience rang false compared to the professions of the state, there were few bases for alternative beliefs, since the Soviet regime succeeded in controlling the dissemination of information. Furthermore, the Soviet claims to international superiority were strengthened by some current events of the time, such as the economic crisis of Western capitalism in the 1930s, the achievements of the Soviet welfare state and the patriotic Soviet battle against, and later victory over, Nazism (see Weiner, 1996, 2001a, b). Kotkin described how ‘bread and circuses’ were used to re‐enforce support for the regime (Kotkin, 1995, pp.…”

Section: New Social Identitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stalinism as a Civilization: New Perspectives on Communist Regimes

Hedin

2004

Political Studies Review

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A new line of inquiry into the history of communist regimes and the cold war has emerged. Pioneered by Stephen Kotkin and other American historians, it views Stalinism as the defining era of socialism, building a specific anti-capitalist and illiberal modernity that mustered voluntary participation and international legitimacy. This model of Stalinism as a rival civilization, held together by participatory totalitarianism, challenges older research on communist regimes -both revisionist and totalitarian studies. However, the degree of originality of this perspective is questioned here, citing precursors, parallels and contrasts within European research and political science. 's magnum opus, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization, was published in 1995. 2 With time, it has proven to be perhaps the key reference to the themes and methods common to a new generation of American researchers into communist regimes. For lack of an established name, I suggest that the two interconnected lines of research pioneered by Kotkin be dubbed 'competing modernities' and 'participatory totalitarianism'. In a compact summary, the claim of communist regimes to represent a superior modernity was key to their success in making Stalinism participatory.Both these concepts -competing modernities and participatory totalitarianism -highlight the paradigm's intellectual indebtedness to both totalitarian theory

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The Making of a Dominant Myth: The Second World War and the Construction of Political Identities within the Soviet Polity

Cited by 39 publications

References 0 publications

The Eternal Great Power Meets the Recurring Times of Troubles: Twin Political Myths in Contemporary Russian Politics

The Eternal Great Power Meets the Recurring Times of Troubles: Twin Political Myths in Contemporary Russian Politics

The Narrative Organization of Collective Memory

Stalinism as a Civilization: New Perspectives on Communist Regimes

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