World War II in Soviet Prose – An Overview

The main focus of our study is the representation of World War II in the Soviet literature from the war period to the ’90s. Several literary works are analysed as representative for the historical, political and cultural background due to their main themes, narrative structure and character construction. The main concepts used in our analysis pertain to the Russian cultural context, on the one hand – heroism, heroic and heroic deed – and to Socialist Realism, on the other – positive hero. We distinguish four main perspectives in the war depiction: romantic-heroic, psychological, philosophical and authentic.

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