The “Immortal Regiment”: A “Holiday Through Tears,” a Parade of the Dead, or a Mass Protest?

ABSTRACT

The history of the Great Patriotic War has become post-Soviet Russia’s universal language for political discussion and the only effective “bond.” As the most advantageous narrative from the perspective of the regime’s interests, it is this narrative of war that the Kremlin seeks to control above all. Memory of the war has been “appropriated” by the state, and the more freedom it has to manipulate this, the less veterans are able to challenge its triumphal mythmaking. However, the memory of war is, for most Russians, not limited to any official narrative in school texts, books, or films. For each family, it is also a family history, an object of pride, and a memory of tragedy. The state’s appropriation of the war and the pressure of “military-patriotic propaganda” have sparked resistance among a significant portion of society, along with a desire to affirm their own family memories. The “Immortal Regiment” was originally an attempt to seize power from the state monopoly and to assert the history of the war as a family history, one not inscribed in the state narrative alone, but that also subordinates the state narrative to family memory. Millions of Russians took to the streets to assert their right to history, the most powerful political statement in Russia’s entire post-Soviet history. The state has tried to paint the Immortal Regiment as a loyalist movement, because it speaks to the same topic that constitutes the core of the regime’s own political ideology, the Great Patriotic War. Meanwhile, it is clear even to the regime itself that this movement is discussing the war differently, in fact undermining the state’s interpretive monopoly on the military past and, consequently, its right to make political statements that exploit the theme of the war. It nevertheless remains too early to say whether the state has fully integrated this action into the propaganda mainstream. Furthermore, the power of the Immortal Regiment is even forcing propaganda to adapt to the demands of family and personal memory.

Notes

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8. Discussion with the author, May 22, 2016.

9. Discussion with the author, May 22, 2016.

10. Discussion with the author, May 22, 2016.

11. M. Gabowitsch, “Are Copycats Subversive? Strategy-31, the Russian Runs, the Immortal Regiment, and the Transformative Potential of Non-Hierarchical Movements,” in Cultural Forms of Protest in Russia, eds. B. Beumers, A. Etkind, O. Gurova, and S. Turmova (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018), Chapter 4.

12. See “Svidetel’stvo o gosudarstvennoi registratsii nekommercheskoi organizatsii,” Bessmertnyi polk website, n.d. (available at http://moypolk.ru/sites/default/files/user_uploaded/user5221/prilozhenie1.jpg).

13. “P. III. 3 Protokola zasedaniia rabochei gruppy po koordinatsii podgotovki i provedeniia informatsionno-propagadnistskikh meropriatii v sviazi s pamiatnymi datami voennoi istorii Otechestva Rossiiskogo organizatsionnogo komiteta ‘Pobeda’,” Bessmertnyi polk website, n.d., (available at http://moypolk.ru/sites/default/files/user_uploaded/user5221/protokol_2014_05_14_04.pdf)

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15. “Putin vozglavil shestvie ‘Bessmertnogo polka’ do Krasnoi ploshchadi,” Republic, May 9, 2015.

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17. See “Bessmertnyi polk Rossii” (available at https://polkrf.ru).

18. Zasedanie Rossiiskogo orgkomiteta “Pobeda” www.kremlin.ru, April 5, 2016 (available at http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/51641).

19. “Pervoe v istorii shestvie ‘Bessmertnogo polka’ proidet v Antarktide,” TASS, May 8, 2018 (available at http://tass.ru/obschestvo/5183046).

20. “V aktsii ‘Bessmertnyi polk’ priniali uchastie bolee desiati millionov rossiian,” RIA Novisti, May 9, 2018 (available at https://ria.ru/society/20180509/1520239795.html).

21. M. Gabovich [Gabowitsch], “Pamiatnik i prazdnik: etnografiia Dnia Pobedy,” Neprikosnovennyi zapas, 2015, no. 3 (101) (available at http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2015/3/9g.html).

22. “Mnogoletnii organizator ‘Bessmertnogo polka’ v Tol’iatti sdalsia iz-za boikota vlastei,” Newsru.com, April 8, 2018 (available at https://www.newsru.com/russia/08apr2018/estrin.html).

23. V. Cherepakhin, Facebook post, May 9, 2018 (available at https://www.facebook.com/tcherepahin/posts/2087859384620150?comment_id=2087872164618872&reply_comment_id=2087981557941266).

24. See, for example, K. Turkova, “Slovarnyi zapas. Vypusk 33. Liubie i besie,” Snob, May 14, 2016 (available at https://snob.ru/selected/entry/108330). See also the project by Grani and the Free Russia Foundation, “Pobedobesie” (available at https://pobedobesie.info/).

25. Analiticheskii otchet po sotsiologicheskomu issledovaniiu v ramkakh doklada Vol’nogo istoricheskogo obschestva ‘Kakoe proshloe nuzhno budushchemu Rossii?’” (Moscow: Komitet grazhdanskikh initsiativ, 2017), p. 67 (available at https://komitetgi.ru/service/%D0%A1%D0%BE%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BB.pdf).

26. starshinazapasa (A. Babchenko), “Bessmertnyi polk—massovyi kul’t mertvykh,” starshinazapasa’s LiveJournal, May 10, 2016 (available at https://starshinazapasa.livejournal.com/916686.html).

27. A. Desnitskii, Facebook post, May 10, 2015 (available at https://www.facebook.com/andrei.desnitsky/posts/964984186869654).

28. “Bessmertnyi barak” (available at https://bessmertnybarak.ru).

29. A. Urushadze, “‘Razgovor ob istoricheskoi pamiati prevrashchaetsia v trolling. My priplyli.’ Aleksei Miller o politike pamiati v Rossii i Evrope,” Colta.ru, April 23, 2018 (available at https://www.colta.ru/articles/specials/17902).

30. I. Kurilla, Facebook post, May 1, 2018 (available at https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10160086295110018&set=a.10160086031795018.1073741837.883275017). (The similarity between “immortal”–bessmertnyi and “homeless”–bezdomnyi is clearer in the Russian.—Trans.)

31. burckina-faso (V. Stechkin), “Pro ‘Bessmertnyi polk’: ot razygryvaniia bylogo triumfa k pokhoronnomu obriadu,” burckina-faso’s LiveJournal, April 29, 2016 (available at https://burckina-faso.livejournal.com/1560463.html). (“Pretty [or Red] Hills” refers to the Sunday after Easter, often a day for visiting graves of family members.—Trans.)

32. N. Starikov, “Vedet li Bessmertnyi polk k bessmertiiu Pobedy,” personal blog, April 8, 2015 (available at https://nstarikov.ru/blog/50518).

33. “Memory, Kinship, and the Mobilization of the Dead: The Russian State and the ‘Immortal Regiment’ Movement,” in War and Memory in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, eds. J. Fedor, M. Kangaspuro, J. Lassila, and T. Zhurzhenko (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), ch. 11, p. 334.

34. V. Muchnik, “Telekompaniia TV-2 unichtozhalas’ po politicheskomu resheniiu,” Rus2Web, April 13, 2017 (available at https://web.archive.org/web/20170714070210/rus2web.ru/mneniya/v-2-unichtozhalas-po-politicheskomu-resheniy.html).

35. “Poklonskaia proshla v kolonne ‘Bessmertnogo polka’ s ikonoi Nikolaia II,” RIA Novosti, May 9, 2016 (available at https://ria.ru/society/20160509/1429702188.html).

36. See, for example, Il’ia Varlamov’s photo report from the 2017 event in Moscow, “Bessmertnyi polk: khoroshii Den’ Pobedy,” photos 11 and 12 (available at https://varlamov.ru/2365009.html).

37. For more, see I. Kurilla, “Istoricheskii iazyk vlasti v 2014 godu. Akademicheska versiia evoliutsii istoricheskogo iazyka V.V. Putina v 2014 godu: ‘bezuderzhnaia instrumentalizatsiia istorii,’” Gefter.ru, December 26, 2014 (available at http://gefter.ru/archive/13920).

38. Tomsk has proved a highly interesting city from the perspective of emerging grassroots initiatives on processing memory: In addition to the Immortal Regiment and the “Party of the Dead,” it was here that Denis Karagodin conducted his own individual investigation into the murder of his great-grandfather by the NKVD.

39. stropov (M. Stropov), “gruppa {rodina}—avtotrofiia,” stropov’s LiveJournal, June 22, 2016 (available at https://stropov.livejournal.com/83603.html).

40. Partiia mertvykh, Facebook post, May 1, 2018 (available at https://www.facebook.com/pg/the.party.of.the.dead/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1932264183459945). (“We Can’t Do It Again” is a negative spin on the patriotic slogan “We Can Do It Again.”—Trans.)

41. Partiia mertvykh, Facebook post, May 1, 2018.

42. Gabowitsch, “Are Copycats Subversive?,” 2018.

43. Analiticheskii otchet po sotsiologicheskomu issledovaniiu, 2017.