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Article published In: Target
Vol. 31:3 (2019) ► pp.398–419

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Deep memory during the Crimean crisis

References to the Great Patriotic War in Russian news translation

ORCiD logo with link | Ghent University
Published online: 27 June 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.18113.spi
Abstract
In Russian media and statements by Kremlin officials, the current war in Ukraine is regularly imagined through the lens of World War II. Protection of ethnic kins in Crimea against their local “fascist” government is even invoked to justify the annexation of the peninsula in March 2014. A narrative analysis of a corpus consisting of 770 English and French newspaper articles and 39 translations demonstrates how the Russian news translation website InoSMI re-interprets Western reports on the Crimean crisis by triggering “deep memory” (Wertsch, James V. 2008a. “Blank Spots in Collective Memory: A Case Study of Russia.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 6171: 58–71. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 2008b. “The Narrative Organisation of Collective Memory.” ETHOS 36 (1): 120–135. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) of the Great Patriotic War. Through selective appropriation, translation shifts and manipulation of visual material, the internet portal highlights particular aspects of the WW II narrative template that activate simplified schemata opposing Rus-​sian “patriots” and Ukrainian “fascists.” The paper thus underscores the role of news translation as ideological memory-work.
Article outline
  • 1.Interpreting the Ukraine war through the World War II lens
  • 2.Mediating memory
  • 3.Corpus and method
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Presence of the Great Patriotic War template
    • 4.2The Soviet victory over Nazi Germany
    • 4.3Enemy figures
      • 4.3.1Ukrainian fascists in the past
      • 4.3.2Fascists in Ukraine today
      • 4.3.3Fascists in Russia today
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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