Memory of the War and Support for the War: Narratives of Participants in the Search for Unburied Soldiers in Russia 18+ THIS MATERIAL (INFORMATION) WAS PRODUCED, DISTRIBUTED, AND(OR) DIRECTED BY THE FOREIGN AGENT YASAVEEV ISKENDER GABDRAKHMANOVITCH, OR RELATES TO THE ACTIVITIES OF THE FOREIGN AGENT YASAVEEV ISKENDER GABDRAKHMANOVITCH

Abstract

This article examines search work in Russia—the search for and identification of the unburied remains of soldiers fallen during World War II—as a lieu de mémoire undergoing transformations during the Russia-Ukraine war. The study focuses on statements obtained during semistructured interviews with Russian searchers (poiskoviki) who in one way or another support the war with Ukraine about these two wars, their similarities and differences, the memory of World War II in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, the motives for supporting the war with Ukraine, and the prospects for searching for and exhuming the bodies of those killed in this war. The memory of World War II formed by pro-war participants in the search movement is characterized by the glorification of all Red Army soldiers and the reconstruction of the heroic circumstances of their death. The fact that the Red Army soldiers were left unburied is justified by the postwar devastation. Pro-war searchers accept Kremlin’s framing of the war with Ukraine as a fight against Nazism, which resonates with their negative attitude toward Nazism in relation to World War II. From a site of tragic memory, associated with the idea of injustice toward soldiers who were left unburied, the search work turns into a site of heroic memory, quasi-religious worship of soldiers’ remains, and glorifying reconstructions. The memory of World War II, formed by pro-war searchers, conveys the values of self-sacrifice, duty, and patriotism in the meaning of loyalty to authorities and the need to fight for the country, which corresponds to the interests of the Kremlin.

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