The Motherland Calls!

During World War II, the Soviet Union sought to rally its people behind central figures and images. While Stalin was always at the front of these propaganda images, the Soviet government promoted war heroes to bolster the morale of the common Soviet citizen through newspaper articles, propaganda posters, and nationalist films that promoted the greatness of the Soviet Union through stories of the past and present. This work offers a brief history of propaganda use in the Soviet Union prior to World War II, citing the use of religious folk symbols and the emphasis on ordinary "extraordinary" heroes such as pilots and scientists in the 1930s. Once an ally, Germany became the focus of highly negative propaganda in the Soviet Union after their invasion of Soviet territory in June of 1941. The Nazi party became "the Fascist serpent," and the Soviet Union realized that they needed a unified citizenry in order to succeed in the war against Germany. This work examines the proliferation of nationalist propaganda through newspapers, posters, and film in World War II in the Soviet Union.

Autorentext

Carolyn Blood is a 2011 graduate of Linfield College with a BA in History. While taking a Soviet history course from Professor Scott Smith, her interest in Soviet war heroes grew into the first draft of this thesis, The Motherland Calls! After completing this work, she traveled to Russia in January 2011 to culminate her Soviet studies.