Mother Russia

The maternal symbol of the country is a significant element of Russian political culture . To confirm its legitimacy, the government uses the idea of hierogamy , the sacred marriage of "Mother Russia" and the ruler, ^[1] who is presented as her protector against enemies that threaten her, external and internal. The political opposition , in turn, attracts the image of the Motherland, suffering from the arbitrariness of power, which is declared unrighteous and often nationally alien (for example, in the Narodism of the 19th century). ^[2]

Medieval Period

In Old Russian culture, the image of the Russian land, depicted in a female, most often maternal, appearance, has spread. ^[3] In the 16th century, it takes on the form of the Svyatorussky mother earth (Holy Russia) under the influence of the works of Maxim the Greek and Andrei Kurbsky ^[4] :

Russian Empire

In the Petrine era, the term “ Fatherland ” is often used to designate the state, but the image of the Mother Russia appears in the texts of Feofan Prokopovich and Gabriel Buzhinsky , and later V. Trediakovsky and M. Lomonosov . ^[6] In the next two centuries, the image became widespread in literature , the visual arts , music , military and political propaganda . ^[7]

Catherine II was an autocratic autocrat and indulged the whims of the nobles, for which the Senate invited her to accept the title "Mother of the Fatherland", the queen refused, but subsequently the title was secretly assigned to her, and loyal subjects often referred to her as "Mother." The successes of the Russian Empire in the last third of the 18th century were also associated with Catherine II.

Soviet period

During the October Revolution and the Civil War, the image was actively included in the propaganda of the White movement supporters, who interpreted the fight against the Bolsheviks as a battle with the “foreigners” as “oppressors of Mother Russia”. ^[8] The idea of ​​a suffering homeland is also characteristic of the culture of the Russian Diaspora. ^[9]

In the ideology of Bolshevism, with the priority of the class over national (“The proletarians have no fatherland”), the image of mother Russia was ignored or used as a symbol of the backwardness of tsarist Russia, its inertness, and also national oppression. ^[eleven]

In Soviet propaganda, the maternal image of the country returns in the image of the Soviet Motherland, which became a key element of Soviet patriotism in the mid-1930s. Unlike the pre-revolutionary Mother Russia, the Soviet Motherland is represented as the mother of all the peoples of the USSR . ^[12]

The image became one of the most noticeable during the Great Patriotic War , the beginning of which was marked by the appearance of the poster of I. Toidze “ Mother Mother Calls! ”, Which has become a symbol of its time. Such subjects of wartime culture as a mother blessing her son to fight the enemy were sent to the mother’s image of the country ^[13] ; mother protecting her child; the suffering of Soviet women ^[14] .

During the Cold War, the country's mother symbol is used in the practice of commemoration , in the legitimization of power in the USSR, and also in ideological confrontation with the West. ^[15] The image of the grieving Mother Motherland, mourning her sons and daughters who fell in the Great Patriotic War, emphasized the country's role in the struggle for peace against the American imperialists as “instigators of war” (One of the most famous is at the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery ). The strength and invincibility of the USSR was symbolized by another face of the Motherland - the warrior with a sword in her hands (monuments in Volgograd , Kiev , Kaliningrad ).

Post-Soviet period

The collapse of the USSR was accompanied by the deconstruction of symbols of the Soviet era, including Mother Motherland, which was reflected in the emergence of alternative female images of Russia (stepmother, public woman). ^[16]

Opposition from the 1990s actively used the image of humiliated Mother Russia to criticize B. Yeltsin’s “anti-people” regime. ^[17]

For the 2000s, the “rehabilitation” by the authorities of the image of Mother Russia was characteristic and its inclusion in domestic and foreign policy propaganda and population policy , ^[18] and also in the representation of the country as a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state.

The image is popular in contemporary Russian culture, including music and poetry, is placed on advertising posters, sports banners, etc. ^[19]

Mother Russia is important component of the Western view of Russia, being called upon to indicate genuine Russianness and show the difference between Russia and the West .

On the one hand, "Mother Russia" evokes sympathy due to its openness, sincerity, proximity to nature, brotherhood, overcoming Western egoism. ^[21] . On the other hand, this term is used to characterize the “archaism” of Russia, its “uncivilization”, and Russian nationalism ^[22] . Got wide spread in Western mass culture , appearing in films, fiction , caricatures, pop music, computer games.

• Mütterchen Russland - a song from the album Veni Vidi Vici of the Austrian singer Nachtmahr (a cover of the band Xe-NONE in Russian is also included in this album).
• Mother Russia - song from Iron Maiden 's No Prayer for the Dying album .
• In the lyrics of the song Panzerkampf by Sabaton .
• Mother Russia is a song by Renaissance .
• Mother Russia is a song from The Sisters of Mercy 's Floodland albums.
• Mother Russia (Doctor Who audio) is an audio drama based on the British series Doctor Who .
• “For Mother Russia!” Is the battle cry of the Russian wrestler Zangiev in the popular game Street Fighter IV .
• Mother Russia is a Kick-Ass comic book character.
• Muva Russia is a mixtape of the American hip-hop artist Fat Trel.

• Mother Russia, image examples
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  "Russia — for the truth." Poster. 1914.

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  "Consent." Lubok . 1914.

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  "Russia". N. Laveretsky. 1896.

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  "Civil uprising". F. Tolstoy . 1816.

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  “For the sacrifice of the International.” White Guard Poster. 1920.

• Motherland
• Marianne (character)

• Drum E. V. "Motherland" in the Soviet cinema of 1941-1945 // Borders: Almanac of the Center for Ethnic and National Studies of IvSU. - Ivanovo, 2008. - Issue. 2: Visualization of the nation . - S. 37-70 .
• Gunther H. The Singing Homeland: Soviet Mass Song as an Expression of the Mother Archetype // Questions of Literature. - 1997. - No. 4 .
• Ryabov O. “Mother Russia”: Nationalism, Gender and War in Russia of the 20th Century . - Stuttgart; Hannover: ibidem-Verlag, 2007 .-- 284 p. - ISBN 3-89821-487-7 .
• Ryabov O.V. "Mother Russia". History of visualization // Borders: Almanac of the Center for Ethnic and National Studies of IvSU. - Ivanovo, 2008. - Issue. 2: Visualization of the nation . - S. 7-36 .
• Filimonov V. “Farewell to Mater”: The image of the Motherland in the cinema of the 1920-1980s // Historian and artist. - 2005. - No. 3 .
• Edmondson L. Gender, Myth, and Nation in Europe: The Image of Mother Russia in a European Context // Paul. Gender Culture: German and Russian Studies / Ed. E. Shore, C. Hyder. - M. , 2003 .-- T. 3.
• Gender and National Identity in Twentieth-century Russian Culture / Goscilo H., Lanoux A. .. - DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2006 .-- ISBN 0-87580-354-7 .
• Hemenway EJ Mother Russia and the Crisis of the Russian National Family: The Puzzle of Gender in Revolutionary Russia // Nationalities Papers. - 1997. - Vol. 25, No. 1 .
• Hubbs J. Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth in Russian Culture. - Bloomington, 1988 .-- ISBN 0-253-20842-4 .
• Suspitsina T. The Rape of Holy Mother Russia and the Hatred of Femininity: The Representation of Women and the Use of Feminine Imagery in the Russian Nationalist Press // Anthropology of East Europe Review. - 1999. - Vol. 17, No. 2 .

• Ivanov (Sukharevsky) A.K. Unisex in a humane man (unopened) (inaccessible link) . Russian republic. Date of treatment July 11, 2014. Archived July 14, 2014.