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Oh, That! Myth, Memory, and World War I in the Russian Emigration and the Soviet Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Aaron J. Cohen
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Abstract

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Historians of Russia have not analyzed the roles that the memory of World War I played in Russian life, and Russia remains largely absent from comparative studies of the war and its legacy. Russian people did have “sites of memory” where they expressed myths, displayed symbols, and mobilized public opinion around the memory of World War I. Outside the Soviet Union, a non-Soviet Russian memory of the Great War flourished in the interwar years, and the war became an important memory that military émigrés used to overcome the rupture from the past (imperial Russia) and the present (Russian territory) caused by revolution and life in emigration. The war had a different expression in Soviet Russia, where journalists and publicists evoked its image, but not its historical content, to break the USSR from the Russian past and separate the first socialist society from its enemies in the present.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , Spring 2003 , pp. 69 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2003

References

1 Jacques Schoonjans, Moscou veul annexerles marts antisoviétiques, available at http://www.russie.net/france/cim-hislaire.htm (last consulted 13 August 2002).

2 Ershov, V., “Emigrantskie organizatsii veteranov voiny v 1920-1930-e gody (po materialam GARF),” in Kruchinin, A., ed., Pervaia mirovaia voina i uchastie v net Rossii (1914-1918), pt. 2 (Moscow, 1997), 77 Google Scholar.

3 For information and pictures, see the information presented by the Centre regional de documentation pédagogique (CRDP) de Champagne-Ardenne, especially on the website “Le cimetiére russe de Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand,” 2000, at http://crdp.ac-reims.fr/memoire/lieux/leregmCA/cimetieres/russes/sainthilaire.htm (last consulted 13 August 2002; emphasis in the original). On the Russian Expeditionary Force, see Cockfield, Jamie, With Snoiu on Their Boots: The Tragic Odyssey of the Russian Expeditionary Force inFrance during World War 1 (New York, 1998)Google Scholar.

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5 “Myth” is used here to mean an explanatory story and does not imply truth or falsehood. On myths, memory, and commemoration of the war in Europe, see the work of Paul Fussell, George Mosse, Modris Eksteins, Samuel Hynes, Daniel Sherman, Jay Winter, Alex King, Antoine Prost, Adrian Gregory, Robert Whalen, David Lloyd, and Annette Becker, among others.

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9 The Moskovskoe gorodskoe bratskoe kladbishche (Moscow Military Cemetery) opened in February 1915 and lasted into the 1920s as the All-Russian War Cemetery but had disappeared by the early 1930s. The only major public monument to World War I in Russia, an obelisk raised in Viaz'ma in 1916, was destroyed in the 1920s. See Zubova, N. and Katagoshchina, M., “Pamiatnik velikoi voiny,” Moskovskii zhurnal, 1994, no. 5:52–55 Google Scholar; Sokol, K. G., Monumenty imperii (Moscow, 1999), 174 Google Scholar.

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14 Ibid., 18.

15 The sources for this article are newspapers, official publications, and journals of émigré military organizations in France, San Francisco, and Shanghai. Most are found in the collections of the University of California, Berkeley, and the archive of the Association pour la conservation des valeurs culturelles russes (hereafter ACCR) at die International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. I also use more widely available memoirs, periodicals, and military histories as well as several websites devoted to the Russian emigration. The Soviet sources are newspaper commemorations of 1 August in Pravda, Komsomol!skaiapravda, Krasnaia zvezda, and Izvestiia. These sources are used because I have not found large or systematic commemorations of the war in other places, including liberal émigré newspapers such as Posledniia novosti (Paris) or “thick” journals like Russkaia mysl', nor have I discovered nonmilitary émigré institutions or monuments that rival the scope of the military emigration's devotion to the memory of the war.

16 On the divided memory of the Holocaust in Germany, see Jeffrey Herf, DividedMemory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge, Mass., 1997).

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19 Raeff, Russia Abroad, 4.

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22 Hassell, Russian Refugees, 62. Membership figures cited here reflect official information given in brochures and publications, but the number of members who participated actively was much lower. For a description of the many Great War military organizations throughout the emigration, see Ershov, “Emigrantskie organizatsii,” 77-87.

23 La Fédération des Invalides Mutilés de Guerre Russes à I'Étranger (Paris, 1929).

24 The Shanghai branch of the Union of Russian Military Invalids Abroad, organized in 1926, had 78 members, 97 women, and 45 children in 1932. In 1937 the Parisian Union had 15 associated unions and 6 groups in 21 countries. The Invalid's Friend (April 1932): 8;Druginvalida (January 1937): 2.

25 Obshchestvo russkikh veteranov velikoi voiny v San Frantsisko (San Francisco, 1937), 2. For a similar mission statement from the Union of Russian Military Invalids in Shanghai, see The Invalid's Friend (January 1933): 3.

26 Obshchestvo russkikh veteranov, 7-12. This society had from 60 to 93 members each year between 1927 and 1947 and still exists today. See Vestnik obshchestva russkikh veteranovvelikoi voiny, no. 183 (26 May 1949): 42.

27 On the Lost Cause and its institutional expressions, see Foster, Gaines M., Ghostsof the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865 to 1913 (New York, 1987)Google Scholar.

28 Stepun, Fedor, Byvshee i nesbyvsheesia (St. Petersburg, 1995), 279 Google Scholar.

29 Kostikov, Viacheslav V., Ne budem proklinat’ izgnarie … (Puti i sud'by russkoi emigratsii) (Moscow, 1990), 55–56 Google Scholar.

30 Taube, M., La politique russe d'avant-guerre et la fin de I'empire des tsars (1904-1917) (Paris, 1928), 408 Google Scholar. There were obviously other interpretations and myths about the war in the Russian emigration, which was diverse in its political, cultural, and philosophical orientations. Variations of the German-Bolshevik plot were strong in right-wing circles, but they could be found everywhere. See the memoirs from such major figures as Denikin, A. I., The White Army (London, 1930), 34,36Google Scholar, and Lukomskii, A. S., Memoirs of the RussianRevolution (London, 1922), 76–77 Google Scholar; but also from regimental historians like Khodnev, D., L.- Gv, Finliandskiipolk v velikoi i grazhdanskoi voine (1914-1920gg.) (Belgrade, 1932), 39 Google Scholar.

31 Press release in ACCR, box 37.

32 Chasovoi, no. 24 (31 January 1930): 3.

33 White generals held this view even while fighting the civil war. S. I. Konstantinov, “Vliianie vzaimosviazi mirovoi i grazhdanskoi voin na psikhologicheskii raskol rossiiskogo obshchestva,” in Narskii and Nikonova, eds., Chelovek i voina, 182.

34 Russkii invalid, 22 May 1928, 6.

35 Obshchestvo russkikh veteranov, 4.

36 The concept of honor was central to White officers’ self-understanding of themselves and their conflict with Bolshevism. See Paul F. Robinson, “'Always with Honour': The Code of the White Russian Officers,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 41, no. 2 (June 1999): 121.

37 This language was common in the emigration as a whole. See die recollections in Glenny, Michael and Stone, Norman, eds., The Other Russia (New York, 1991)Google Scholar.

38 A. I. Denikin, Put'russkogo ofitsera (Moscow, 1990), 257 (emphasis added).

39 Rokotov, M., “Nezabyvaemye gody,” Rubezh, no. 32 (5 August 1939): 14 Google Scholar.

40 Ibid., 18 (emphasis added).

41 Stepun, Byvsheei nesbyvsheesia, 279.

42 Danilov, Youri [Iu. N.], La Russie dans la guerre mondiale(1914 -1917) (Paris, 1927), 552 Google Scholar. Émigré military histories routinely reminded readers that Russian participation in the war had saved Fiance on numerous occasions.

43 See the Cause commune headlines “William II, the Assassin of Nicholas II” (20 October 1918), “William II, Lenin's Accomplice” (10 November 1918), “The Fall of Odessa, a Germano-Bolshevik Triumph” (14 April 1919), and “The Alliance of Bolshevism with German Imperialism” (12 August 1919).

44 Bourtzeff, V., Alliés, entendez-nous!(Paris, 1920), 7 Google Scholar.

45 On French hostility toward émigrés, see Hassell, Russian Refugees, 89; Glenny and Stone, eds., Other Russia, 264, 284.

46 See the title page of La Fédération des Invalides Mutiles.

47 Leaflet in ACCR, box 35.

48 Obshchestvo russkikh veteranov, 2. In 1934, the RVW became a member of the United Veterans’ Council of California. More common Russian terms for “military veteran“ were uchastnik voiny, byvshii uchastnik voiny, or invalid (if disabled).

49 Minor, Osip Solomonovich, Na Chuzhbine: Sbornik proizvedenii russkikh voinov,1914-1919 (Paris, 1919)Google Scholar. The printing was 3,000.

50 See the last page of Popov, K., Vospominaniia Kavkazskogo grenadera 1914-1920 (Belgrade, 1925)Google Scholar.

51 Leaflet in the ACCR's copy of La Fédération des Invalides Mutilés (emphasis in the original).

52 The Invalid's Friend (January 1933): 4.

53 Ibid., 3.

54 Vestnik soiuza qfitserov uchastnikov voiny, 1929, no. 5:17 (emphasis in the original).

55 Buchinskaia, L., preface to Buchinskii, Iu. F., Tannenbergskaia kataslrofa (Sofia, 1939)Google Scholar.

56 Pravda, 1 August 1918, 1 (emphasis in the original); Krasnaia zvezda, 1 August 1939, 2.

57 Krasnaia zvezda, 1 August 1939, \\Pravda, 1 August 1924, 4; Komsomol'skaia pravda, 1 August 1939, 1.

58 Pravda, 1 August 1939, 5.

59 O. Iu. Nikonova, “Instrumentalizatsiia voennogoopytavSSSRvmezhvoennyi period,“ in I. V. Narskii and O. Iu. Nikonova, eds., Chelovek i voina, 395.

60 Pravda, 1 August 1924, 4; 1 August 1926, 1.

61 Pravda, 1 August 1924, 3-4.

62 Pravda, 1 August 1934, 2.

63 Orlovsky, “Velikaia voina i rossiiskaia pamiat',” 54.

64 Pravda, 1 August 1924, 4; 1 August 1929, 4.

65 Brooks, Jeffrey, Thank you, Comrade Stalin! Soviet Public Culture from Revolution toCold War (Princeton, 2000), 79, 150Google Scholar; Vladimir Shlapentokh, Soviet Public Opinion and Ideology:Mythology and Pragmatism in Interaction (New York, 1986), 27; Sinyavsky, Andrei, SovietCivilization: A Cultural History (New York, 1990), 210 Google Scholar.

66 Pravda, 1 August 1937, 4.

67 Komsomol'skaia pravda, 1 August 1934, 1.

68 Krasnaia zvezda, 1 August 1938, 2.

69 Nora, “General Introduction,” 2.

70 Krasnaia zvezda, 1 August 1938, 1.

71 Pravda rarely had more than an article or two devoted to the anniversary before 1929, except for 1924 (one and a half pages). In 1929 the paper had four full pages, in 1930 one page, in 1934 five pages, and in other years several commemorative articles. The coverage in other newspapers followed similar patterns: Komsomol!skaia pravda devoted five pages to the issue in 1929 and 1934, while Izvestiia had four pages and six pages, respectively.

72 Komsomol'skaia pravda, 1 August 1929, 1.

73 Pravda, 1 August 1929, 1 (emphasis in the original).

74 Ibid., 4.

75 Izvestiia, 1 August 1929, 1 (emphasis in the original).

76 The coverage of World War I in the 1930s was much greater than comparative historical experiences in all other editions of the encyclopedia. In the first edition, the civil war received 18 pages (vol. 18,1930), the October revolution 20 pages (vol. 43,1939), the Fatherland War of 1812 6 pages (vol. 43, 1939), but the article on the “First World Imperialist War” extended over 124 pages (vol. 44, 1939). The second edition, published in the 1950s, had 34, 21, 5, and 6 pages for each entry, respectively, while the third edition in the 1970s had 13,13, 2, and 11 pages.

77 Pravda, 1 August 1934, 2; Izvestiia, 1 August 1934, 5-6.

78 Pravda, 1 August 1935, 3; hvestiia, 1 August 1939, 4.

79 Krasnaia zvezda, 1 August 1939, 3.

80 Pravda, 1 August 1942, 4; 2 August 1942, 4; 31 July 1944, 4.

81 Pravda, 31 July 1942, 4.

82 Pravda, 1 August 1954, 3-4; 1 August 1964, 3. There is a sharp drop after 1941 in the number of books related to World War I in the collections of the Institute of Scientific Information of Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences. From 1923 to 1941, between 15 and 25 books per year were added to the collection, while before 1923 and after 1941 the yearly increase in the collection numbered in the low single digits. See Pervaiamirovaia voina: Ukazatel'literatury 1914-1993gg. (Moscow, 1994).

83 The poll was conducted by the Fond “Obshchestvennoe mnenie” (Public Opinion Foundation) in the year 2000. A copy of the report can be found in A. S. Petrova, Clientzapomnilsia rossiianamXXvek, 21 December 2000, available at http://www.fom.ru/reports/frames/of005101.html (last consulted 13 August 2002).

84 Merridale, Night of Stone, 100.

85 For examples of these commemorations, see a news report from the Baltic News Service cited on the website “Otkroetsia memorial nemetskim soldatam, pogibshim v pervoi mirovoi voine,” 14July 1998, available at http://stats.enet.ru/win/digitalKenig/news/bns/980714/3.html (last consulted 13 August 2002); a website of the Russian reenactment club “Group North” (Poiskovyi i voenno-istoricheskii klub “Gruppa Sever“), Tsarskoe selo, 2001, available at http://grsever.narod.ru/Phushkin.html [sic] (last consulted 22 February 2002); and a report from the Russian press agency ITAR-TASS cited in the online Orthodox magazine pravoslavie.ru, Panikhida i krestnyi khod v Moskve posviashcheny pamiatigeroev Brusilovskogo proryva, 10 June 2001, available at http://www.pravoslavie.ru/news/010611/04.htm (last consulted 13 August 2002).

86 See Smith, Kathleen E., Mythmaking in the New Russia: Politics and Memory during theYeltsin Era (Ithaca, 2002)Google Scholar.

87 For information on “Reconciling the Nations,” see the report in the Russian Orthodox journal Rus’ derzhavnaia, 1998, no. 11-12 located on the web: Ianis Bremzis, Kliramchasovnia“Primireniia Narodov,” available at http://www.mrezha.ru/rde/55/26.html (last consulted 13 August 2002).

88 Ibid.

89 War commemorations in Pushkin have also taken place on 11 November.

90 See a news story from the press agency “Prima” cited on the website of the Russian nongovernmental organization tolerance.ngo.ru: Arkhiv novostei, April 2001, available at http://tolerance.ngo.ru/news/archive.php?Year=01&Month=april (last consulted 13 August 2002).