Great Patriotic War (term)

History

The term "Patriotic War" refers to Russian resistance to the French invasion of Russia under Napoleon I, which became known as the "Patriotic War of 1812". In Russian, the term "Patriotic War" (Russian: отечественная война, otechestvennaya voyna) originally referred to a war on one's own territory (otechestvo means "the fatherland"), as opposed to a campaign abroad (заграничная война), and later was reinterpreted as a war for the fatherland, i.e. a defensive war for one's homeland. Sometimes, the Patriotic War of 1812 was also referred to as the "Great Patriotic War" (Великая отечественная война); the phrase first appeared in 1844, and became popular on the eve of the centenary of the Patriotic War of 1812.

After 1914, the phrase was applied to World War I. It was the name of a special war-time appendix to the magazine Theater and Life (Театр и жизнь) in Saint Petersburg, and referred to the Eastern Front of World War I, where Russia fought against the German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire and Ottoman Empire. The phrases "Second Patriotic War" (Вторая отечественная война) and "Great World Patriotic War" (Великая всемирная отечественная война) were also used during World War I in Russia.

The term "Great Patriotic War" re-appeared in the newspaper Pravda on 23 June 1941, just a day after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. It was found in the title of "The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet People", a long article by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, a member of the Pravda editors' collegium. The phrase was intended to motivate the population to defend the Soviet fatherland and to expel the invader, and a reference to the Patriotic War of 1812 was seen as a great morale booster.

During the Soviet period, historians attempted to make this history fit with the state's communist ideology, with Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov and General Pyotr Bagration transformed into peasant generals, Alexander I alternatively ignored or vilified, and the war becoming a massive "People's War" fought by the ordinary people of Russia, with almost no involvement on the part of the government. The invasion by Germany was called the "Great Patriotic War" by the Soviet government to evoke comparisons with the victory by Tsar Alexander I over Napoleon's invading army.

The term "Patriotic War" was officially recognized by establishment of the Order of the Patriotic War on 20 May 1942, awarded for heroic deeds.