Major general L.M. Dovator: real image and myth in propaganda and historical memory

Abstract

This work is devoted to how myths were formed around the name of the hero of the Moscow Battle of the Great Patriotic War, General L.M. Dovator, his image was formed in propaganda and cultural memory.

Sources and methods. The methodological basis of the article is a complex of studies of the phenomena of heroic, propaganda and historical memory. In the first case, the concept of the hero as a social phenomenon, proposed by the Polish sociologist S. Czarnowski, is of great interest. In his opinion, the hero embodies the values, ideals and hopes of a certain social group, acts as its symbolic patron. In addition, the public cult of the hero, his celebration, is in fact a form of glorification by a social group of itself [24, pp. 51-52]. Propaganda is traditionally a mixture of real events, their simplified presentation and outright mythologization. Its analysis is possible through the prism of the method of deconstruction of mythologies ("mythologies") applied by R. Barth. From his point of view, myth is a metalanguage, that is, a secondary language in which they speak about the primary (that is, about a fact or phenomenon) [3, p. 272]. A myth has a form, a concept, and a meaning. The first creates a shell, the second fills it with meaning. Myth deforms meaning ("... where meaning ends, myth immediately begins there") and turns it into a form. At the same time, the myth has a value nature. It is these features that determine the meaning (content) of the myth. According to R. Barth's observations, myth is both a form and a meaning [3, p. 287]. The evolution of the representation of feats is also considered in the context of historical memory and, especially, historical politics. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that it is difficult to draw a clear line between them – one flows into the other. The personal "appropriation" of the past is pressed by the "social framework of memory" (M. Halbwax's term [48]), which consists in the phenomenon of a strong influence on individual memories and ideas about the past of various social groups and social institutions. It is the "social framework of memory" that sets the standards for explaining events, thereby giving socio-political significance to historical facts. A huge role in the formation of such a framework is played by the state, which has powerful information resources, as well as the ability to suppress competitors in the symbolic field [2].

Conclusions. In the context of the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War, a  full-fledged myth about General L.M. Dovator arose. Its origins can be found in wartime propaganda. In the future, the image of Dovator was firmly embedded in the narrative of the battle for Moscow. At the same time, this name has great knowledge for the historical memory of the Stavropol Cossacks, who made up the bulk of the cavalrymen of Dovator. In post-Soviet Russia, it is actively used as a source of "inventing traditions".