Druhá světová válka – tabuizovaná témata v sovětské kultuře
Second World War – taboo topics in Soviet culture

Summary/Abstract: Through a sweeping exploration of Soviet cultural memory, the text uncovers how narratives of the Second World War were shaped, censored, and weaponized to maintain ideological control and national myth‑building. It follows the evolution of Soviet wartime storytelling—from early post‑revolutionary heroism to Stalin’s mythic rewriting of history and Brezhnev’s monumentalization of the “Great Patriotic War”—revealing how omissions, distortions and orchestrated silences became central tools of state power. By tracing thirteen key taboo areas, including hidden collaboration, concealed genocides, suppressed military failures, antisemitic purges, and forbidden parallels between gulags and Nazi camps, the study exposes the mechanisms through which the regime constructed a selective collective memory. The narrative also highlights how censorship shaped literature and film, forcing authors like Grossman, Někrasov and Solženicyn to navigate a landscape where truth was dangerous and silence mandatory. These taboos did not vanish with the Soviet Union but continue to influence contemporary Russian politics, nationalism and interpretations of the war, even resurfacing in the propaganda surrounding the invasion of Ukraine. Ultimately, the text shows how the Soviet and post‑Soviet handling of wartime memory forged a powerful ideological legacy—one in which myth often eclipsed reality and historical trauma remained deliberately obscured.

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