Suchergebnisse

This is an introduction to the themed collection of essays that comprise this issue of the Journal of European Studies. It outlines the recent upsurge in scholarly and popular interest in the writing of the Soviet author Vasily Grossman, and the various different perspectives from which his work has been analysed. It also discusses the genesis and proceedings of the workshop in Oxford in September 2011 at which earlier versions of the papers contained in this issue were delivered.

This article locates Vasily Grossman's work in the context of the official collective remembrance of the 'Great Patriotic War' in the Soviet Union. It discusses the evolution of the official war myth and of Grossman's own thinking about the meaning and significance of the conflict. This provides the context for a close reading of Life and Fate, elucidating how it challenged the shibboleths of official war memory, which had already become the key legitimating foundation of the post-war Soviet system. This brings into focus the key political issues at stake in the novel, yet it also reveals some ambivalences in Grossman's attitude, belying simple generalizations about his dissidence in the last years of his life.