Everyday Life, Work, and Survival on the Soviet Home Front in World War II

Abstract

In post-Soviet decades, World War II loomed large as the central element in Russia’s historical myth of national greatness. The heroic narrative of the war has been promoted by the state and used to justify the regime’s current political aims.1 At the same time, historical research on the war, which benefited greatly from the “archival revolution,” did a lot to undermine this historical myth while presenting a much more ambivalent picture of the Soviet war effort. Not only experiences on the battlefield but increasingly life and work on the home front became the subject of critical analysis.2 While the