Sympathy for the Devil: General Vlasov in the Collective Memory of the Great Patriotic War in Post-Soviet Russia

Abstract: Andrei Andreevich Vlasov, a Soviet general who sought to create a Russian Liberation Army under German auspices during World War II, has been the focal point of debates about wartime collaboration that reflect deep divides in memory of the Great Patriotic War and the Stalin era in post-Soviet Russia. Memory entrepreneurs in the literary world, the Orthodox Church and the historical profession have reappropriated Vlasov, inserting him in anti-Soviet historical narratives as a hero, symbol or martyr. Meanwhile, patriotic intellectuals in the Putin years have invoked Vlasov as a figure of national treachery and use him to discredit their political opponents. The debate over Vlasov points to the fractured and unproductive nature of national collective memory in Russia.