Memory of WWII in the U.S.-Russia Cold War Discourse: Ideology vs History

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel considers discussing the memory of WWII through the lens of both the"Old " and "New " Cold War Discourses as a rhetoric and symbolic phenomenon. The main idea of the panel is to emphasize that ways to remember WWII in the spheres of politics, mass media, academic environment, and popular culture were and are still in correlation with the climate of the U.S.-Russia relations as well as domestic agendas. While Micheal Kimmage and Ivan Kurilla discuss the new vision of each other as Enemies No. 1, Karen Petrone demonstrates how both the memory of the Great Patriotic War and the Soviet Afghan War incorporate anti-US and anti-NATO tropes that first appeared in Soviet anti-Western propaganda and save their place in the ecosystem of Putin-era propaganda.

Sub Unit

• International Relations, Security Studies, Foreign Policy

Chair

• Nina Tumarkin, Wellesley College

Papers

• Overcoming the Second World War: George Kennan and the Origins of the Cold War - Michael Kimmage, Woodrow Wilson Center, Kennan Inst

• World War II Narratives as Historical Politics in the Cold War - Ivan I. Kurilla, Ohio State U

• Echoes of the Cold War in Contemporary Russian War Memory - Karen Petrone, U of Kentucky

Discussant

• Nina Tumarkin, Wellesley College