Victory Banner Over the Reichstag: Film, Document and Ritual in Russia's Contested Memory of World War II
Victory Banner Over the Reichstag: Film, Document and Ritual in Russia's Contested Memory of World War II
by Jeremy Hicks
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020 Cloth: 978-0-8229-4650-2 | eISBN: 978-0-8229-8796-3 Library of Congress Classification D743.23.H53 2020 Dewey Decimal Classification 940.54213155
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
In one of the most iconic images from World War II, a Russian soldier raises a red flag atop the ruins of the German Reichstag on April 30, 1945. Known as the Victory Banner, this piece of fabric has come to symbolize Russian triumph, glory, and patriotism. Facsimiles are used in public celebrations all over the country, and an exact replica is the centerpiece in the annual Victory Parade in Moscow’s Red Square. The Victory Banner Over the Reichstag examines how and why this symbol was created, the changing media of its expression, and the contested evolution of its message. From association with Stalinism and communism to its acquisition of Russian nationalist meaning, Jeremy Hicks demonstrates how this symbol was used to construct a collective Russian memory of the war. He traces how the Soviets, and then Vladimir Putin, have used this image and the banner itself to build a remarkably powerful mythology of Russian greatness.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Jeremy Hicks is professor of Russian culture and film at Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of First Films of the Holocaust, Dziga Vertov: Defining Documentary Film, and Mikhail Zoshchenko and the Poetics of Skaz.
REVIEWS
“The Victory Banner over the Reichstag makes an important and timely contribution to current reassessments of Soviet war memory. Scholars of Soviet film and television will find the analysis of visual evidence and film archives particularly illuminating, but anybody interested in the memory of World War II and the symbolic politics of Soviet socialism will learn much from this extensively researched and accessibly written study.” —Russian Review
“Centering on the concept of ‘authoritarian repetition,’ this remarkable study of the ritualization of historical memory constitutes a significant contribution to the growing field of memory studies.” —CHOICE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration and Document Citation
Introduction
1. The Raising of the Victory Banner
2. Victory and the Postwar Stalin Cult
3. The Death of Stalin and Birth of the Victory Cult
4. The Victory Cult in the Age of Television
5. Iconoclasm, Resanctification, and the Post-Soviet Victory Cult
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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