Fatherland Defenders: The Kremlin's Use of Great Patriotic War Memory in Russia's Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine as Seen on Russian State Television

• In Event: Media and Manipulation: Propaganda Narratives and the Justification of Russia's War in Ukraine through Information Landscape

Abstract

In modern-day Russia, information war is an inseparable and often dominant part of conflict. One of the most convenient uses for the Kremlin-controlled rhetoric is to draw a clear line between ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ For that, the narratives related to the Great Patriotic War have been one of, if not the most, “politically usable” element of the collective Russian past due to its previous institutionalization and its uncontested positive meaning. Evidently, Russia manipulates the history of the Great Patriotic War by creating a certain type of memory – through myths of undefeatedness, unity, everlasting gratitude and strength. Now, the Kremlin uses this institutionalized memory to compare it to the current invasion of Ukraine, paralleling the second world war with the current times; nazis then and nazis now. As such, I aim to uncover exactly how the invasion of Ukraine is being justified through the Kremlin’s memory lens. The theoretical framework of the paper builds off of strategic narrative analysis, historical framing, memory politics, and war merging. The primary source analysis is based on Russian domestic television post-2022, as it is the predominant form of media consumption among the population, with 65% calling it the main source of their news. This research hopes to contribute to a deeper understanding of authoritarian functions, the employment of propaganda in ideo-political conflicts, and the employment of memory politics for authoritarian regimes at war.

Author

• Ekaterina Gonchar, U of Toronto (Canada)