Origin and meaning of the word combination
While Soviet textbooks single out the period of the Great Patriotic War (1941-45), contemporary ones dealing with Ukrainian history refer to World War II (1939-45), the Soviet-German War (1941-45), and Soviet-Japanese War (1945) as separate unequal chapters.
These changes have brought our national history closer to world history in terms of periodization. Yet this is not the only point that matters. For the Ukrainians, the war started not in June 1941, but when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Millions of residents of Western Ukraine were caught in its flames from the very first day. Soviet war veterans often object to the notion of the Soviet-German War in the textbooks instead of the familiar Great Patriotic War. Residents of the western territories have their own view of this pompous Soviet appellation. To them, the Soviet Union has never been their Fatherland. The Sovietization campaigns of 1939-41 and 1945-53 were for them as hard to endure as the Nazi occupation of 1941-44. Both views are quite emotional, just as the feelings on both sides are understandable. However, it is necessary to ascertain the pros and cons of both appellations from the scholarly and didactic viewpoints. The notion of a Soviet-German War does not reflect the war in its entirety. The Third Reich was not the only enemy the Soviet Union fought. There were also hundreds of thousands of Finns, Hungarians, and Romanians. The notion of the Great Patriotic War for the Fatherland is acceptable to only one side. The Wehrmacht or UPA officers and men cannot be referred to as its participants, nor does the appellation address all those fighting on the Soviet side (Czechs, Poles, and so on).
More often than not, modern textbooks use the notion World War II because it embraces all of the participants and hostilities. Both word combinations can be used, depending on the context, meaning the war between the USSR and Germany. After all, it is understandable that the war was, for all participants regardless of the nationality, both great and patriotic. In our textbooks we try to avoid political confrontation by using the terms, because such confrontation has nothing to do with the educational objectives and is generally unhealthy.
Finally, it is worth analyzing the origin of the notion of the Great Patriotic War. It is generally known to be associated with the Napoleonic Wars and that part which took place in the Russian Empire, going down into Russian history as the Patriotic War of 1812. The war between France under Napoleon and a coalition of countries led by Russia continued from 1813 until 1814, yet it was no longer referred to as “patriotic.” The modifier served to stress the nationwide character of the War of 1812. The war as such had been and remained a duel between professional armies. In 1914-17, official Russian propaganda tried to tag World War I as “great” and “patriotic,” so far as Russia was concerned. The archives of the Crimean guberniya commissar of the Provisional Government contain a message addressed by Archbishop Dimitry to his Crimean parishioners. One sentence is of particular interest: “The current blood-shedding great patriotic war makes it clear that our country and the Russian people are on the verge of destruction.”
The appellation did not set in. Instead, the whole affair became known as an Imperialistic War courtesy of the Socialist parties. It reflected the crux of the matter. Now and then newspapers would publish hearsay reports on secret negotiations of the allies, concerning the redistribution of hostile territories and colonies. After November 1917, the Bolsheviks made the documents of secret talks public knowledge. Soviet propaganda’s attempt to call the Soviet-German war “great” and “patriotic” proved successful. It was accepted by the people. The word combination was first used by Molotov in his radio address to the nation on June 22, 1941. He stated, in part: “At one time our people responded with a patriotic war to Napoleon’s campaign against Russia, and Napoleon suffered utter defeat. The same happened to the arrogant Hitler that has declared a new crusade against our country. The Red Army and the whole people will once again wage a victorious patriotic war to protect their Fatherland, honor, and freedom.” The newspaper Pravda allocated a whole page for an article by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, chairman of the Society of Old Bolsheviks, titled “The Great Patriotic War.” Joseph Stalin also used the expression in his radio address of July 3, 1941.
