CHAPTER 5
Memory is never shaped in a vacuum; the motives of memory are never pure.1
After its publication, Brezhnev’s volume of memoirs, Malaia zemlia, went on to dominate remembrance of the war in Novorossiisk, canonising the war myth according to Brezhnev. Its dissemination increased in momentum across the country, affecting individual Soviet citizens of all ages, particularly those exposed to political lessons in schools and universities, and veterans wishing to contribute their own memoirs to the war myth. As a consequence of the domination of Brezhnev’s memoirs came a period of homogenisation of memory of Malaia zemlia through further memoirs, from 1978 until shortly after Brezhnev’s death in November 1982.
Despite the minor nature of the Malaia zemlia campaign, its significance and Brezhnev’s role were systematically exaggerated, becoming a major part of the official story of the war. Brezhnev’s master-narrative became the authoritative work on the Malaia zemlia campaign, studied by academics and the subject of numerous scholarly works. Roi Medvedev recalls:
It was necessary to consider him an intellectual, a talented man able to write books, interesting books. These books had to be studied in school. This was a characteristic of the regime.2
Immediately after its publication, school teachers were involved in the propagation of Brezhnev’s Malaia zemlia, being encouraged by the Ministry of Education to include mandatory courses on its content for children in Young Pioneer and Komsomol summer camps. In the light of the work’s ‘most important significance for the communist education of the Soviet people’, the young generation was targeted for the ‘moral’ and ‘spiritual’ education it offered. Furthermore, following a series of training conferences for teachers over the summer period, the memoirs featured prominently in the academic curriculum from September 1978. The exact nature of the approach to Brezhnev’s work was detailed for every school year, being included in the schemes of work from even the youngest classes. This was an eminently attractive myth, used by the elite to rewrite the past, thanks to its so-called ‘importance as an historical document’. With ‘examples of mass heroism’, ‘analysis of historical facts’ and the demonstration of the ‘leading role of the Communist Party’ in the war, its ‘truthful, factual’ account provided exemplar material for history and politics lessons for younger pupils, while its artistic merit guaranteed it a place in the study of twentieth-century literature for older students alongside such luminaries as Fadeev, Sholokhov, Tvardovskii and Simonov. In the case of university students, Malaia zemlia appeared in the ubiquitous courses on the history of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union.3 Teachers’ lesson plans and students’ work were inspected by the Komsomol, guaranteeing compliance by lecturers and students alike. Even outside school, children were taken on educational tours of Malaia zemlia and its memorials,4 while the recommendation of the book for reading at home with subsequent homework ensured the engagement of parents.5 This relatively minor military campaign, virtually overlooked in earlier official history books of the war, had become by 1978 an integral part of the school and university curriculum, leading to sales of Brezhnev’s memoirs of about one million copies annually.6
Michael Shudson observes from a Western perspective that, once canonised in the curriculum, a ‘work accumulates a self-perpetuating rhetorical power’, gathering an expanding circle of validating proponents and followers: ‘It gathers partisans, partisans beget schools, schools beget cultural authority, cultural authority begets an established tradition.’7 In the case of Brezhnev’s memoirs, however, although the outcome was the same, it was achieved through a different mechanism from that observed in the dissemination of Western literature.In Brezhnev’s case, the cultural authority and canonisation were established from above before the work became widely known to the masses. Once actively promoted in schools and universities, the authority of Brezhnev’s Malaia zemlia was set in the concrete of socialist realist iconography.
The film appeared, a play followed and Malaia zemlia was produced as a record version, read by well-known actors.8 Popular songs about the heroic campaign sprang up,9 some included in a musical produced in 1979,10 while Sofronov had his play set to music in an oratorio by K. Akimov, V serdtse i v pamiati (In Heart and Memory), based on Brezhnev’s memoirs.11 In a probable attempt to align himself with the correspondent’s flattering comments, Brezhnev ‘recalls’ in his memoirs the contribution of Sergei Borzenko, working alongside political worker Mariia Pedenko and the poet Pavel Kogan. This ‘memory’ is flawed, however, as Kogan was killed in the fighting immediately following the German occupation of Novorossiisk in September 1942, well before the Malaia zemlia campaign started, and Brezhnev did not arrive on Malaia zemlia until April 1943.12 Despite this, the invented incident features in the musical adaptation of Brezhnev’s memoirs, which further propagates Brezhnev’s version of events. Although this musical was in the same sentimental vein as Sofronov’s play, composer Iurii Levitin and lyricists E. Dolmatovskii and Iu. Miliutin did not attempt to fictionalise the protagonist. Rather, the narrator, book of memoirs in hand which he quotes extensively throughout the musical, represents the author Brezhnev himself. While the start of the musical is relatively faithful to the book, commencing with Brezhnev’s arrival on Malaia zemlia after his boat struck a mine, the campaign is further embellished by the introduction of sentimental and patriotic songs. The musical starts with Shostakovich’s Novorossiisk Chimes, the 18th Army gathers in Gelendzhik to a stirring military march, while later more solemn music proclaims a funereal tribute to Major Kunikov.
The most nationalistic sentiment is reserved for political worker Mariia Pedenko’s song about the birch tree, a symbol of the Soviet Union. A woman also featured in the dramatised version of Malaia zemlia. Sofronov’s play included the female spiritual companion demanded by socialist realism, a certain Masha Kuzina, a kind-hearted character who tended the sick, like Mariia.13 In Levitin’s musical, Mariia dies during the fighting, only to re-appear at the end as a representative of the three million party members who fell during the war. The cult of Mariia Pedenko gained ground in the 1970s, spawned by the cult of Brezhnev, an example of an individual whose identity was re-shaped in line with the war myth according to Brezhnev. Far from dying on Malaia zemlia, though, Pedenko was wounded during the liberation of Novorossiisk, only to settle in Kiev after the war until her actual death in 1957.14
In his memoirs, Brezhnev recognises Pedenko’s morale-boosting contribution to the Malaia zemlia campaign, where she not only undertook clerical and librarian duties, but also worked as an ‘agitator’, a member of the political section, in the production and dissemination of the locally produced news-sheet, Polundra.The name for this publication derived from the battle-cry shouted by sailors and marine infantry Previously interpreted as a warning – Watch out! Get down! –, on Malaia zemlia it was intended as the more positive encouragement ‘Let’s go!’ –, often followed by the word ‘Vpered!’ (onwards), the Russian equivalent of the French ‘en avant’.
Pedenko had already published her memoirs in the form of her wartime diary shortly after the war, but it was not until her contribution was publicly recognised by Brezhnev that she was included in the official war cult.15 Georgii Sokolov notes that Brezhnev had recalled Mariia during the reunion of 18th Army veterans in Moscow in May 1970, saying:
Do you remember Mariia Pedenko? A girl in the political section of the 255th Marine Infantry Brigade? For me, her face was the personification of many women who fought shoulder to shoulder with the men.16
Following Brezhnev’s lead, Sokolov went on to include her story, ‘Ryzhaia Polundra’ (‘Redheaded Polundra’), in his later memoirs,17 with further comments about her belatedly recognised role in the introduction and epilogue.18 An academic article published in Ukraine the following year confirmed her new status as Brezhnev’s protégée, quoting extensively from his memoirs.19 Pedenko’s own novel, drafted in 1952, was published posthumously in 1980. “Polundra, Krasnoflotsy!” (“Polundra, Red Navy Sailors!”) was based on Pedenko’s time on Malaia zemlia, and included Brezhnev’s words about her in the introduction.20It has been found that memory of women participants in the war relied mainly on private, oral accounts.21 This may well have been the case for many women in the Soviet Red Army, whose public voices were silenced due to the perceived stigma of alleged sexual promiscuity during the war. Thanks to Brezhnev, however, Mariia Pedenko was singled out from several women on Malaia zemlia, with her place in the myth further propagated by Sofronov, Levitin and Sokolov
Pedenko’s is not the only story to have been revived by Brezhnev. Due to the overriding influence of Brezhnev’s memoirs, many responses were spawned and individuals re-defined within Brezhnev’s master narrative, leading to a second stage of homogenisation of memory according to the myth propagated by Brezhnev. Many publishers jumped on the memorial band-wagon, recycling and re-working material from Brezhnev’s Malaia zemlia. For example, a new guide-book to Novorossiisk with substantial extracts from Brezhnev’s memoirs was published in 1978.22 A further book wrapped the text of Brezhnev’s memoirs around glossy photographs of Brezhnev’s visit to Novorossiisk in 1974, with one whole page dedicated to Mariia Pedenko’s place in Brezhnev’s memoirs.23
Following the appearance of Brezhnev’s memoirs, several veterans of Malaia zemlia suddenly published their own memoirs, once the door had been opened to them. The snowball effect launched by the publication of Brezhnev’s authoritative text is a factor in the construction and propagation of a war myth unique to Malaia zemlia in the Soviet Union of the period, serving to validate Brezhnev’s story and exaggerate its importance. This continuing myth-building process, where the existing myth influences the individual, is diametrically opposed to the initial mechanism, whereby several individuals contributed to the construction of the original myth. A whole series of such memoirs was published in the Krasnodar region between 1978 and 1985 in the series Ratnyi podvig Novorossiisk (Novorossiisk’s Military Feat), with the stated aim of setting the war events in Novorossiisk alongside those of other better-known hero cities.24 The series continued well after Brezhnev’s death in 1982, probably due to the local interest generated by the regionally published works. Identical in size, format and style,25 the covers of the books embrace a small variety of different colours to distinguish them from each other. The series was branded by the motif across the top of each edition of the Defence Line monument erected in September 1978 in the north-east of Novorossiisk, months after the publication of Brezhnev’s memoirs.This concrete arch across the main road to Gelendzhik depicts a series of socialist realist fists, each clenching a stick grenade.
Uniformity of the individual books was further guaranteed by a distinguished editorial team including the memoirist Georgii Sokolov and other senior Ratnyi podvig authors: A.P. Marfin, V.T. Protsenko and G.A. Pshenianik. This elite group managed to navigate the increased censorship of the time, ensuring that the content of each work conformed to the growing myth.26 With a modest print-run of 25,000 per book and priced between 15 and 30 kopecks, memoirs in the series were written mainly by officers, with the notable exception of Viktor Kaida, a marine infantry rating who settled in Novorossiisk after the war. Other authors were former and existing marine infantry officers, Black Sea Fleet officers or pilots. All were men, although Mariia Pedenko’s wartime diary, originally published in Kiev, was re-published in the Ratnyi podvig series as Frontovoi dnevnik (Frontline Diary).
Most of the works contain substantial passages of conversation with comrades, ostensibly recalled almost 40 years after the event. These render the books more accessible, while also padding out the meagre content in the case of Viktor Kaida. In contrast, Grigorii Bondar’, who had become a rear admiral by the time he wrote his memoirs, has a more thoughtful, literary style, filling three times as many pages as Kaida. Overall there is much material in common. Several books mention Tsezar’ Kunikov in Gelendzhik before the landings and his untimely death, although his name was only a legend to most.27 The self-sacrifice of young Viktor Chalenko appears in Bondar’’s memoirs,28while other episodes also bear the hallmark of Sokolov’s earlier accounts.
It is no surprise that the enemy occurs in every work. Referred to as Fritzes, Hitlerites or simply fascists, they are depicted as weak and drunk, uncommitted to their cause. On the other hand, the Soviet troops hold the moral high ground throughout, winning through thanks to their ‘iron courage’ as they fought ‘for the honour, freedom and independence of their dear Motherland’.29 Bondar’ selects several close encounters with Germans to make his point. He was involved in the capture of a weak German prisoner, who became an informant for the Soviets without much persuasion. A Romanian defector is also mentioned, admired for his ‘peasant practicality’ by Bondar’ in his persistent attempts to desert in search of better treatment from the Soviets.30 Sympathy is also shown for a German pilot shot down in flames, who was unwilling to face capture, having apparently been told that the Soviets would cut out his heart and liver and eat them.31 The propaganda war was fought by both sides, it appears. The enemy dropped leaflets onto Soviet troops with ‘forged’ photos of Soviet officers who wrote in favour of the Germans. In return, Bondar’ and a political officer hid a radio on the slopes of Mount Koldun close to enemy lines, through which they broadcast propaganda messages. These included letters written allegedly by German prisoners of war about the stupidity of conflict and the great political unity of the Soviet people defending their Motherland.32
All authors describe dangerous situations where they came close to death. Galatenko reinforces the nightly threat of torpedo and shell fire when crossing the bay from Gelendzhik.33 On land, Kaida was surprised by two Germans when entering an apparently empty shack, only escaping death by the timely intervention of his comrades.34 In his own drama, Bondar’ describes the struggle to access water from the sole well in Myskhako (the so-called Well of Life), which was under constant fire from enemy troops holding the higher ground.35 Bombing and strafing by German aircraft was a constant danger to everyone based on Malaia zemlia.
Once the fiercest battles of April were over, there was time for some relaxation. Formal concerts and poetry reading were organised by the political department. Bondar’ recalls singing and dancing to a record player in the cellar under the wine factory in Myskhako, while Galatenko includes a photograph of a concert in the open air, with guitar, accordion and saxophone.36 It was during their free time that the troops missed their homes most. Bondar’ describes conversations about their families, noting that it was the women that the men discussed most. However, it seems that there were actually several women on Malaia zemlia, not only Mariia Pedenko. Most were volunteers, including radio operators, telephonists, nurses and field medical orderlies, mechanics, meteorologists, librarians and interpreters, with many in the political section. There were even two female officers on the beach-head – one medical sub-lieutenant and one lieutenant in a marine infantry rifle platoon. In a chapter entitled ‘Nashi frontovye podrugi’ (‘Our Female Friends at the Front’), Bondar’ includes an extended analysis of women’s roles, giving several examples by name, and noting his admiration for their courageous behaviour in the cold and wet trenches, carrying rations and communications equipment into action and wounded men off the battlefield.37 Grigor’ev refers to Mariia Pedenko’s production of the May Day issue of Polundra, with the help of artists contributing humorous cartoons and sketches, including Vladimir Tsigal’, who was later responsible for the design of the Malaia zemlia memorial complex.38
One significant feature of the Ratnyi podvig Novorossiiska books is several pages of black and white photographs, which usually include a picture of Brezhnev among the troops as well as the standard photograph of Major Kunikov before the landings. As a series of memoirs influenced by the myth according to Brezhnev, wherein each individual author relocates his own story, Brezhnev’s appearance in these works is virtually mandatory, with some apt quotations from his memoirs. Even Savitskii, a former pilot, who would not have met Brezhnev during the war, speaks of his memoirs with authority.39 Most memoirists include a tribute to Brezhnev, who was apparently recalled by them all, thereby reinforcing and further endorsing Brezhnev’s memoirs in a spiral of myth making. Indeed, it has been alleged that the mature myth according to Brezhnev generated many more ‘witnesses’ who actually believed the fabrications that they wrote.40 For example, Galatenko boosts Brezhnev’s reputation as a wise commander, recalling him making a useful suggestion on the training of troops:
Colonel Brezhnev requested the sailors to help the landing troops with respect to the crossing and landings. He says that you already have previous experience in landing operations, which should be shared with our troops and commanders.41
Reinforcing the argument for homogeneity of content as well as form, Kaida relates in his book published a few months later how Brezhnev recommended the passing on of experience from sailors to soldiers:
Leonid Il’ich suggested directing experienced Malozemel’tsy sailors to instruct the soldiers who were taking part for the first time in such a difficult military operation as landings from the sea.42
In a more personal passage, Grigor’ev recalls giving Brezhnev a guided tour of the trench network. Apparently, having congratulated the troops on their defensive preparations, the colonel went on to request a steam bath, which, it seems, was made available.43 Widening the scope, Bondar’ not only recalls Brezhnev on Malaia zemlia, but also met him as leader of the Soviet Union. Other memoirists similarly recall meetings with Brezhnev in 1974 and on key anniversaries.44
In the Ratnyi podvig Novorossiiska series individuals clearly demonstrate a tendency to smooth out differences for the sake of simplification and coherence of the war myth. Lisa Kirschenbaum similarly finds the increasing appropriation of the war myth by survivors in their own accounts towards the end of the Brezhnev era, although none of them would have claimed to meet Brezhnev during their military service.45 This phenomenon was not unique to the Soviet Union, however, as a similar merging of individual experience with the myth has been found in the case of Britain during World War II.46
While earlier memoirs were produced by veterans with a genuine gift and motivation for writing, most of these later authors were not talented writers. As little more than political pawns, they do not stand out amongst the memoirists of Malaia zemlia, their identity being subsumed by the overarching state ownership of the war narrative, and their own real stories transformed into myth. Thus, by the time of Brezhnev’s death, there was a state of total visible convergence of published war memoirs in Novorossiisk, due largely to state coercion and under the complete ownership of the state. In view of the state’s didactic attitude to the production of culture, it is not surprising that the myth of Malaia zemlia developed in this way. The formulaic nature of socialist realism which led to the uniformity of literary form observed in many memoirs facilitated myth creation by their very homogeneity.
The overt inflation of Brezhnev’s role in his memoirs and the self-aggrandising monumentalisation of war memory drew criticism from both dissident and Western scholars immediately after Brezhnev’s death.47 Michael Ignatieff, for example, is scathing of the war cult of the Brezhnev era:
Compared to the other great battles, the fight for Novorossisk would have been a minor skirmish had it not been for the fact that a young party propaganda officer named Leonid Brezhnev played a minor and inglorious role in the rear. [. . ] When masters invent tradition, they have the past re-written as the history of their own glorious beginnings.48
From a more personal point of view, Zhores Medvedev recalls both the campaign and Brezhnev’s memoirs:
Brezhnev’s attempts to rewrite the history of the war were a source of derision amongst the military. As his ‘personality cult’ became more insistent, so he was more and more often described as an outstanding military leader who had played an active part in the most important battles of the war. This was simply not true. The battle which took place near Novorossiisk in 1943, where he was the deputy of the commander for political work [. . .] was part of a not very successful military operation and not one of the crucial battles of the war as it is depicted in works written to elevate Brezhnev’s role. I am in a position to form an independent opinion about this isolated section of the Southern front [. . .] for as a seventeen-year-old private in the infantry I was in the same army at the same place.49
This comment demonstrates the superficial validity of the memories of two different people of the same event. In the face of Brezhnev’s dominant narrative, though, Medvedev’s opinion from the point of view of a hospitalised junior soldier would count for little. However, his opinion four decades after the events carried more scholarly authority in the West. Roi Medvedev is similarly scathing of the ‘forged’ memoirs, while Lazar Lazarev condemns Brezhnev’s memoirs as a ‘ghost-written biography, which included a glowing, fictionalised account of his own modest wartime service as a military commissar’.50
The literary response within the Soviet Union after Brezhnev’s death was more muted but equally pervasive. If Brezhnev had defined other memoirists involved with the Malaia zemlia campaign for his own purposes, it was Brezhnev who was later re-defined by the memoirists. On the national level, the section relating to Brezhnev in Borzenko’s original article on Malaia zemlia written in 1943 no longer appears in a collection of wartime dispatches published in 1982, while a later version of Zhukov’s memoirs has the questionable paragraph about seeking Brezhnev’s opinion removed.51
Locally, however, the response was less severe. Sokolov retains in all later editions of his memoirs the same brief passage about the kind and modest Colonel Brezhnev, narrated by the young Vasilii Zelentsov, to whom Brezhnev issues his party card:
A colonel is sitting at the table. Thinnish, but with bushy, black eyebrows. He’s wearing a simple soldier’s uniform and greatcoat. He turns to me, smiling. His eyebrows lift a little, and I can see his bright, jolly eyes. [. . .] And do you know who that colonel was? [. . . ] Brezhnev, the head of our landing army’s political section.52
Similarly, the passage describes Brezhnev’s rallying speeches on the beach-head and retains the part about Brezhnev having been blown out of his boat by a mine.
It is the epilogues of Sokolov’s memoirs, however, which clearly demonstrate the rise and fall of Brezhnev’s cult of personality. In his final chapter of the 1967 edition, ‘Dvadtsat’ let spustia’ (‘Twenty Ye ar Later’), four lines are devoted to Brezhnev, by then general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, who joined the veterans for the first major reunion on Malaia zemlia in 1963.53 This section was repeated verbatim in the 1971 edition of the book.54 By 1979, Brezhnev’s memoirs were cited in the prologue by Admiral Kholostiakov, who ‘recalled’ that Brezhnev took part in the actual planning of the landings, aligning both himself and Sokolov with Brezhnev’s version of events.55 By then, the Malaia zemlia campaign was so famous that Kholostiakov compares it favourably with the Battle of Stalingrad. In Sokolov’s epilogue, ‘Tridtsat’ let spustia’ (‘Thirty Years Later’), Brezhnev makes an early appearance in the second paragraph, by virtue of his attendance at reunions and his visit to Novorossiisk in 1974, which permeates the rest of the epilogue and will be considered in detail in Part II. Exaggerating the number of times Brezhnev crossed to Malaia zemlia and emphasising the danger involved, Sokolov repeats the story of Brezhnev’s boat hitting a mine. Details of his party work on the beach-head follow, with the information that Brezhnev never forgot a name or a face. Furthermore, Sokolov attributes to Brezhnev in this edition the suggestion that he supplement his original book of memoirs with the input of his comrades-in-arms. Brezhnev is given credit for supplying Sokolov with a list of addresses for this reason and also with helping in the organisation of the first reunion in 1963. Thus Brezhnev is characterised alongside other leading military officers as a brave soldier, a trusty comrade and an organised leader.56
Memory of the past has an important function in the building of an identity in the present. James Wertsch observes that, for an individual’s identity, memory is more likely to privilege accuracy, while for a country it is based rather on the need for a politically usable past.57 In Sokolov’s case, however, as in the Ratnyi podvig Novorossiiska memoirs, accuracy seems to have been discarded by the individual memoirist for the sake of toeing the party line in the context of group and national identity. There may be two possible reasons for the homogeneity of memoirs after the appearance of Brezhnev’s works, especially in relation to Brezhnev himself. This may simply be caused by unconscious reactions to an almost subliminal influence on memory caused by pervasive propaganda and its formulaic language – the defining framework for the war cult of the Brezhnev era. Wertsch demonstrates how, in some cases, ‘a text can structure meaning, communication and even thought’, while ‘another author’s words may be appropriated by the recipient who then passes them on as his own words’.58 This type of unconscious organic influence may be recognised in media content, with television and press coverage in the Soviet Union probably subjecting the malleable memory of an individual citizen (who may not even have read Brezhnev’s memoirs) to the dominance of the collective. A more likely mechanism in the case of memoirists, though, is that they employed a proactive response indicative of a degree of self-serving political awareness. In this way, the pragmatic memoirist probably effected a deliberate reconstruction of personal memory, encouraged or coerced by the censor, to accommodate the unwritten literary guidelines of the era.
It is noticeable that Sokolov carefully crafted different editions of his memoirs to situate them within the memorial climate of the Soviet Union over nearly two decades, changing them proactively to suit the presentist attitude of the state. By Sokolov’s final edition, published in 1985, most of the material is similar to previous versions, except the epilogue, ‘Sorok let spustia’ (‘Forty Ye ars Later’). Here, in complete contrast, Sokolov removes every reference to Brezhnev, although he retains most other sections from both ‘Twenty Years Later’ and ‘Thirty Years Later’.59 In a similar way, two of the later memoirs in the series Ratnyi podvig Novorossiiska, published after Brezhnev’s death, contain no references to him, in contrast to earlier works in the series. These reactions to the death of the agent of the centralised myth suggests that the predominant influence on memoir literature relating to Brezhnev from 1978 to 1982 was the proactive type, residing mainly in the hands of the author, rather than an unconscious reaction to an overwhelming influence from above. Having largely removed Brezhnev from his memoirs by 1985, Sokolov finally left a probably more truthful version than Brezhnev’s own memoirs for posterity, demonstrating greater integrity as a memorial to his fallen comrades.60
The influence of Brezhnev’s memoirs was so overwhelming during his leadership that they permitted no contestation, clouding and distorting history for the sake of political utility. In the end though, Brezhnev’s exaggerated claims probably served to sound the death-knell for the war cult. After his death, the public attitude to Brezhnev in the capital hardened, following disclosures in 1987 by Soviet historians that his wartime exploits had been greatly exaggerated in Malaia zemlia, causing one letter-writer to state: ‘The work is not worth keeping in public libraries and the war museum since, as everyone knows, Brezhnev never wrote it.’ With Brezhnev written out of his own myth, copies of his memoirs were in fact removed from school libraries and destroyed, while references to Malaia zemlia in the introduction to television’s minute’s silence were cut.61 Thanks to Brezhnev, Malaia zemlia had become a national and international subject of derision and a sad symbol of the stagnation of the Brezhnev era.
The myth that during the war years had promised so much in comparison with the myth of the siege of Leningrad had, it seemed, died an early literary death. As a victim of its own hyped-up success, it had exaggerated the past to such an extent that its rapid construction was followed by an even swifter deconstruction. The carpet was pulled out from under the lesser authors of the Ratnyi podvig Novorossiiska series and only Sokolov managed to regain his once-compromised integrity. In complete contrast, the myth of the siege of Leningrad, built upon more solid historical foundations, continued to attract growing public credibility once the stranglehold of the Soviet elite had been released. For Malaia zemlia, though, the remembrance process would have to rely on a different, non-literary mechanism if it was to survive at all.