Authors

Elena Racheva¹;  ¹ University of Oxford, Department of Sociology, UK

Discussion

The paper examines Russian state Programmes of Patriotic Education and the role of veterans of local wars (mostly in Afghanistan and Chechnya) in the implementation of them. This term “patriotic education” became common at the beginning of the 2000s. I will show that “patriotic” mostly stands for “military”, and that “patriotic education” means offering a range of different paramilitary activities or propaganda of army service. The Programmes were centered upon uniting citizens around the military as a source of patriotic pride, to reconstruct national identity, to elaborate a new state ideology.

I also claim that the ubiquity of military propaganda and incessant presence of war-related activities have had a significant role in normalizing war and violence and spreading them throughout society.

Besides, I argue that the main actors of the state programmes have become alliances of veterans. Established in the 1980-1990 as a means for commemorating the fallen, as well as helping the survivors, they have become one of the central institutions in state memory politics and an integral part of all “patriotic” events and actions with military associations. In the 2010s, the organizations changed their statutes and declared new goals: they moved from taking care of brothers-in-arms to taking care of patriotic ideology.

My research is based on the analysis of official state documents and interviews with war veterans from seven Russian regions.