Joseph Stalin’s Death as Perceived by Soviet Citizens: Materials from the Kemerovo Region
https://doi.org/10.21603/sibscript-2024-26-6-1016-1025
Abstract
The article describes the way the population of the Kemerovo Region responded to the death of Joseph Stalin at mourning events as a projection of the Soviet myth. The author studied verbal and non-verbal reactions to identify the main concepts and patterns used by the local people to describe their psycho-emotional and mental state after receiving the news of Stalin’s death. The content and discourse analyses revealed the following verbal reactions: "shared loss" and "personal grief"; Stalin as a father figure, personifying the paternalistic attitude of the Soviet state towards its citizens; a connection between Stalin and the achievements of the entire country; appeals to citizens to strengthen production and political activity, to support the government; "immortality" of Stalin, his system, and Soviet achievements, and the "eternal significance" of his ideas. The non-verbal reactions included a total mobilization of political and production activities to consolidate people around the party and state institutions. In general, people’s response to Stalin’s death could be reduced to a reproduction of certain patterns that reflected the main ideologemes of the Soviet myth.
About the Author
Dmitry S. Morozov
Polzunov Altai State Technical University; Altai State University
Russian Federation
Competing Interests:
Russian Federation
Barnaul
Competing Interests:
The author declared no potential conflict of interests regarding the research, authorship, and / or publication of this article
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Review
For citations:
Morozov D.S. Joseph Stalin’s Death as Perceived by Soviet Citizens: Materials from the Kemerovo Region. SibScript. 2024;26(6):1016-1025. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.21603/sibscript-2024-26-6-1016-1025
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