Constructing the Meanings of Second World War Search Work in Russia: ‘Patriotism’ from the Perspective of the Authorities and Search Expeditions Participants

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the meanings of ‘search work’ in Russia, that is, the search for and identification of the unburied remains of Soviet soldiers who died during the Second World War. These meanings are constructed not only by ‘the searchers’ but also by the Russian authorities. The rhetoric of the authorities regarding the search movement is filled with elevated sentiments like ‘patriotism’, ‘heroism’, ‘education’, ‘pride for the Fatherland’ and ‘strengthening the country’. The authorities tend to discursively embed the search movement in the patriotic education of citizens, formulating the meanings of the search within the context of militarized patriotism. Searchers’ statements about their work are characterized by motifs of a different tone, such as the unfairness shown towards the soldiers who have remained unburied for decades. The key meaning of the search according to the participants of expeditions is a desire to restore fairness by informing the relatives about the fate of missing soldiers and burying the soldiers’ remains. A problematization of the war in the searchers’ experiences is discursively contrasted with the authorities’ militaristic rhetoric.

The material presented in this chapter was published previously in: Goncharova, N. & Yasaveev, I. (2020). Konstruirovanie smyslov poiskovoj raboty v Rossii: lejtmotivy vlastej i uchastnikov ekspeditsij [The Meanings of WW2 Search Work in Russia in the Rhetoric of State Authorities and the Searchers Themselves]. Mir Rossii, 29(1), 153–173 (in Russian). Permission was given by the journal for the material to be translated and used in the present chapter. The study was carried out as part of the project ‘Creative Fields of Interethnic Interaction and Youth Cultural Scenes of Russian Cities’ supported by the Russian Science Foundation (grant no. 15-18-00078) at the Centre for Youth Studies of the National Research University, Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg.