Ukraine: Rethinking the Second World War and the Victory

Abstract

This paper discusses how Ukraine has been observing May 9 as a Victory Day throughout its history. The paper looks into the origins of the name ‘the Great Patriotic War’ and through analysis of newspaper articles of the relevant period aims to find out why this name was invented in the first place and how it was different from the term ‘the Second World War’. The introduction offers an insight into what kind of problems concerning the WWII and victory in it Ukraine was left with after the collapse of the Soviet Union and why it needs to rethink its perception of the meaning of the two. The second chapter deals with the Soviet terminology for the war and victory, arguing that such expressions as ‘the Great Patriotic War’, ‘victorious Soviet (or Russian) people’ etc. were used by the Stalin’s propaganda in order to consolidate various nations of the Soviet Union in the fight against Germany and to emphasize the leading role of Russians in the struggle not only against Fascist Germany but also in past struggles against foreign invaders throughout the centuries. This part of the paper also proves that in order to not only highlight heroism of the Russians as a nation but also to boost the army’s morale the Kremlin ideologists used references to the ‘glorious past’, especially, to defeat of Napoleon in 1812 war and aimed to transfer perceptions and emotions associated with that war onto the Russian-German war in 1941. The third chapter looks into the history of celebrating the Victory Day in Ukraine and shows how Ukraine has come from Soviet-style celebration to more European-style commemoration. It also points out that despite the recent change in official perception of the war and the Victory Day it is still too early to talk about unambiguous cognition of the two by the Ukrainians and thus calls for balanced approach that would help consolidate the nation. The conclusions summarize the history of celebrating the Victory Day in Ukraine by dividing them into five major periods. Based on materials discussed in two previous chapters, this part of the paper offers peculiarities and distinct features for each of the five periods.