“The Front-Line Birch Stands”: the Place of Remembrance of the Great Patriotic War in Soviet Literature

Abstract

Was the transformation of the birch into a symbol of Russia a successful Soviet project, or was the Soviet success only a brief episode in the long history of the “Russian tree”? What role did the experiences of the Great Patriotic War, which were recorded in poems and songs about it, play in the emergence of the cult of the birch as a “Russian tree”? Poems by war veterans and war children about their experiences form the basic material for examining the transformation of the birch into a “front-line birch” and then into a national symbol. They are analyzed in the briefly outlined context of the emergence of images of the “front-line birch” in Soviet literature and of images of the birch in classical Russian poetry of the 19th century. The poetic images of the “front-line birch” are examined in the article taking into account their reception by readers and in comparison with the images of the birch circulating among war participants and contemporaries. Classical Russian culture of the 19th century was unable to become a permanent part of the controversial, invented tradition. Through the efforts of cultural creators from generations of war participants and witnesses, the birch became a storehouse of meaning from which valuable and useful images could be drawn at will and when needed. The veterans gave a new, unprecedented impetus to the process of transforming the birch into a “Russian tree”.