Myth Making in the Soviet Union and Modern Russia: Remembering World War II in Brezhnev's Hero City

The 1943 battle to free the Soviet Black Sea port of Novorossiisk from German occupation was fought from the beach head of Malaia zemlia, where the young Colonel Leonid Brezhnev saw action. Despite widespread scepticism of the state's appropriation and inflation of this historical event, the heroes of the campaign are still commemorated in Novorossiisk today by an amalgam of memoir, monuments and ritual. Through the prism of this provincial Russian town, Vicky Davis sheds light on the chara...