Emotions, Experience and the End of the World: The Red Army, 1941-1942

FAIN: FEL-289683-23

Matthew Edward Lenoe
University of Rochester (Rochester, NY 14627-0001)

Research and writing leading to a book on the experiences and emotions of Red Army soldiers in the Soviet Union during a crucial year of World War II (1941-1942).

This project examines the daily lives, experiences and emotions of Soviet soldiers, both men and women, in the first fifteen months of the Axis invasion of the USSR. During much of this period the Red Army suffered heavy losses, but did not collapse. Letters of soldiers, diaries, POW interrogations, disciplinary reports and other sources reveal how family connections, memories of home, bonding with comrades-in-arms and experiences of natural beauty all helped soldiers to endure battle and defeat. They also show that soldiers’ feelings and their stories about war were not determined by Stalinist prescriptions, but emerged from the interaction of those prescriptions with lived experience. These conclusions serve as the basis for a challenge to claims that culture entirely determines emotions. They lead further into a discussion of the ways humans make meaning and endure hardship across cultures.