Martyrdom and the Russian Imagination during the Great War

• In Event: Martyrs Secular and Saintly in Revolutionary Russia

Abstract

Religious and secular identities were deeply entangled in Russia’s experience of the Great War (1914-17). With the conflict framed officially as a “holy war,” soldiers who died in battle were heroized as martyrs “on the altar of the fatherland,” Orthodox clergy worked hard to mobilize support for the war effort, and religious imagery shaped commemorative practices. However, assessing how ordinary people in the empire responded to official rhetoric about wartime service and sacrifice is challenging, partly due to wartime censorship. This paper draws on personal diaries to explore how the concept of martyrdom influenced popular perceptions of the war, while also considering parallels with the language and rituals of martyrdom in other combatant nations.

Author

• Page Herrlinger, Bowdoin College