Babies in military uniforms, toddlers in cardboard tanks, primary school children marching in lockstep. Ahead of the big military parade on Moscow’s Red Square on May 9, young Russians in other cities have already started commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.
In the city of Kemerovo in southwestern Siberia, newborns in a maternity home were dressed up as soldiers, with little field caps on their heads, and wrapped in olive green sleeping bags. On its website, the establishment calls on citizens to join up, reminding users that even the smallest citizen of Russia is part of history and suggesting that the clothing symbolizes the “connection between generations.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of kindergarten children took part in a “military parade” that included homemade military vehicles and airplanes, in a residential district of the central Russian city of Voronezh.
In Vladivostok, in Russia’s far east, more than 1,500 “great-grandchildren of victory” marched through the city center, in what the governor of the Primorye region Oleg Kozhemyako described as the “first children’s parade in the region.” He announced that some of those heading the columns had participated in the war in Ukraine: “Today, there are children whose fathers are fighting on the front marching in the columns. We are rightly proud of the courage and bravery of our fighters, and are certain that the enemy will be defeated, just as it was in the distant year of 1945.”
Victory Day has become ‘an instrument of mobilization’
For 80 years, many Russian families primarily associated “Victory Day” with commemorating the loss and devastation of World War II. But that is now shifting. Alexey Yusupov, a Russian political scientist at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, told DW that increasingly, the state was instrumentalizing the May 9 Victory Day to shape a new identity and ideology.
He explained that over the past two decades, the Kremlin had learned to “militarize this day, or rather to activate it, because it has become engraved in the collective memory of many Russians as something that united the country. It has become an instrument of mobilization for the regime.”
The Kremlin used certain particular dates, he added, such as this year’s 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, to draw historical parallels between the Soviet Union and today’s Russia, and to demonstrate the strength and legitimacy of the current regime.
According to Ilya Grashchenkov from the Moscow-based Regional Policy Development Center, Victory Day is not only important for Russian families, but for the Russian government. “Over the past 20 years, the state has done everything it can to be an integral part of this commemoration. For [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, the victory in World War II is a constant, on which the entire Russian state is based, and of which he as president is a part.”
But he added that for millions of ordinary people, May 9 remained an anniversary that brought “tears to their eyes.” He pointed out that for many years after 1945, May 9 had been a day of mourning without a military parade.
Military parade is ‘superfluous’ in times of war
The self-exiled Russian political scientist and former Putin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov told DW he felt the May 9 parade in Moscow, at a time when Russia was at war with Ukraine, would be “superfluous.” He argued that such parades were “a replacement for war that are needed in times of peace when the army is not fighting but wants to show itself.” He said that given the fact that the Russian army had not yet achieved its main goals in the past three years, the parade would come across as not being “serious.”
“Before 2022, everyone thought Russia was significantly stronger than Ukraine. But it’s turned out that wasn’t the case. Nobody can call this a high-quality conduct of war,” he added.
Grashchenkov expects that on this May 9, parallels will be drawn with the war in Ukraine, as was the case at the “first children’s parade” in Vladivostok, but that they will not play a prominent role. Instead, he said that for Putin, it was important that the commemorations be as “international as possible.” He pointed out that the foreign guests attending would be there to mark the historic victory of 1945: “The message of Victory Day is that Russia paid a very high price for peace in Europe. Putin will certainly project the victory of 1945 onto today’s fighting in Ukraine. But he will not place a huge emphasis on it.”
Gallyamov said the parade was “a universal instrument” for the outside world, and for Russian society: “The propagandists will say that they are perpetuating the glorious traditions of the heroes of the victory of 1945. But Russian society will not be influenced by these narratives.” He said that the parallels being drawn were too contrived, and that it was too obvious that the comparisons were not actually in the Kremlin’s favor: “In the past three years, the Russians have not even had full control of the regions to which they lay claim, let alone managed to capture Kyiv.”
However, he did say that Moscow’s elites would be in a mood for victory on May 9. “We will see a lot of show,” said Yusupov. “We will hear a lot of statements. We will see a lot of television programs.” He added that the Kremlin would do its utmost to prove that today’s Russia is the same “power for good” that it was 80 years ago.
This article was translated from German.
