«Отстоим Волгу-матушку!»: материнский символ реки в дискурсе Сталинградской битвы
“Let us defend Mother Volga!”: the maternal symbol of the river in the discourse of the Stalingrad battle

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the analysis of employing the symbol of Mother Volga in the discourse of the battle of Stalingrad. The author points out that the battle was represented in the Soviet propaganda as defending Mother Volga which served as a substitute of the Motherland. The article begins with a discussion of the theoretical aspects of the nationalism study exploiting the maternal symbol of rivers. It then proceeds to sketch out the role of the views on the Volga as mother in the Soviet culture of 1920—1930s. Next, the article examines forms and functions of the Soviet propaganda’s employing the image of Mother Volga in the time of the battle of Stalingrad. The author demonstrates that using this image contributed to strengthening the Soviet identity; war mobilization; substantiating the idea of the Red Army’s military and moral superiority; and creating the image of the Enemy. Above all, employing the image helped to maintain the collective identity, participating in the drawing symbolic boundaries between “us” and “them”: the Volga received a special status as a hypostasis of the Soviet Motherland.

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