Abstract

The subject of the study is the image of the West as an ally as it was shaped by the Soviet media during the Great Patriotic War. For Soviet propaganda, the periodical press was very important because it contributed to the formation of public perceptions of both the outside world and the situation in the country. During the war, the main goal of newspapers was to mobilize the masses. Scientifi c works on similar problems were, as a rule, of an overview character which did not consider the dynamics and numerous nuances in relations with the allies throughout the entire period of the Great Patriotic War, as well as the mechanisms of Soviet propaganda in the coverage of the foreign policy. An analysis of an extensive set of sources, including publications of the central periodical press (Pravda, Izvestiya, Krasnaya zvezda), allows a comprehensive study of the formation and evolution of the image of the West as an ally of the anti-Hitler coalition in the Soviet press in 1941–1945. All the activities of the media were under the control of the Directorate of Propaganda and Agitation of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, and the responsibility for it was vested in the Press Department. As a result, the information conveyed to the Soviet population was selected and ideologically verifi ed. This certainly applied to material about the United States and Great Britain. Information about the activities and assistance of the allies was primarily intended to convince the Soviet reader that the country had not been left alone with the enemy. At the same time, the Soviet press avoided an overly enthusiastic tone toward yesterday’s ideological adversaries. The evolution of the image of the allies within the anti-Hitler coalition in the central periodical press of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic war went through several stages and depended largely on the situation on the Soviet-German front.

References

Golubev A.V. “Yesli mir obrushitsya na nashu Respubliku”: sovetskoye obshchestvo i vneshnyaya ugroza v 1920–1940-ye gg. [“If the World Descended Upon Our Republic”: Soviet Society and the Foreign Th reat in the 1920s–1940s]. Moscow: Kuchkovo pole, 2008. 381 p.

Koldomasov I.O. Formirovaniye obraza soyuznikov s pomoshch’yu pechatnykh SMI v sovetskom obshchestve voyennykh let (1941–1945 gg.) [The Formation of the Image of Allies through Printed Media in the Soviet Society during the War (1941–1945)] // Nauchnyye vedomosti Belgorodskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Series “Istoriya. Politologiya”. 2009. N 7. P. 75–80.

Koldomasov I.O. Kategoriya “obraz” v istoriko-psikhologicheskom issledovanii (na primere obrazov vraga i soyuznika) [Category “Image” in Historical-Psychological Research (Enemy and Ally’s Cases)] // Gumanitarno-pedagogicheskiye issledovaniya. 2018. N 4. P. 36–43.

Kozlov N.D. Obshchestvennoye soznaniye v gody Velikoy Otechestvennoy voyny (1941–1945) [Public Consciousness in the Years of the Great Patriotic War (1941– 1945)]. Saint Petersburg: Leningradskiy oblastnoy institut usovershenstvovaniya uchiteley, 1995. 138 p.

Shirokorad I.I. Tsentral’naya periodicheskaya pechat’ SSSR v gody Velikoy Otechestvennoy voyny (1941–1945 gg.): diss. … doktora istoricheskikh nauk [Central Periodical Press of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945): Doctor in History Diss.]. Moscow: Rossiyskiy universitet druzhby narodov, 2002. 363 p.