This photograph of a civil defense brigade in the 1930's evokes the riverside
picnic scene from Mikhalkov's Burnt by the Sun. "...if in America the main mythology on which 'emotion management'
was based was a mythological narrative of home and family, its equivalent
in the USSR was a state imposed narrative that found its embodiment in
the system of military training in school and higher education institutions.
Recollections collected from the Russian participants show that the dominant
patriotic collective narrative was sustained by means of military and
patriotic education. This education was conducted both in and outside
the school by means of school curricula, clubs and societies of revolutionary
and labor glory, paramilitary Summer Lightning and Eaglet games, excursions
to scenes of revolutionary combat and labor glory of the Soviet people,
Red Scouts activities, GTO norms, and paramilitary summer camps. School
and university teachers, whatever subjects they taught, were supposed
to participate in these methods of political socialization and character
training. In the course of military games, children were taught to measure
levels of radiation, to locate radiation-free areas, and to render general
assistance to the public during a nuclear crisis. "What were we
thinking at that time? - one of the participants asks herself - We
were supervising how good our pupils are in obeying orders from their
officers. Did we think at all that we need good citizens, independent
people, not good soldiers?"" |
|