Narrating World War II: History Textbooks and Nation-Building in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine

In 2014, Russian president Vladimir Putin emphasized that Victory Day on 9 May remains the main Russian celebration; it is the day of national triumph, people’s pride, sorrow, and eternal remembrance (Ria Novosti 2014). Indeed, in the post-Soviet context it is in particular the memory of World War II (or the Great Patriotic War) that has been used in state-led nation-building processes of post-Soviet countries to foster a sense of national belonging (Rentrop 2004, Goujon 2010, Chiari & Maier 2004, Marples 2014, Jilge 2006). The multinational federation that was the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, giving rise to new nation states. Since then, these states have been striving to create particular national identities in order to legitimize their existence. In many cases this set the seed of conflict between the now-sovereign post-Soviet states and the former Soviet central power Russia. Particularly, history writing became one of the identity markers of the new nation states. This paper provides insight into the post-narratives of World War II in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine in recent school history textbooks. As a specific genre of history writing, a school history textbook is an important lieu de mémoire that preserves a certain narrative of historical events and produces a feeling of national belonging among young people (Nora 1989, Anderson 2006). The paper is based on a narrative research methodology, which offers insights into a nuanced understanding of national identity as forged by the post-Soviet states in school history textbooks (Patterson & Monroe 1998, Shenhav 2005, Wodak 2004).