Ekaterina Haskins: "Epideictic Rhetoric at the Museum of Moscow and the Cult of the Great Patriotic War in Putin’s Russia"
- Date: 28 February 2019, 15:15–17:00
- Location: IRES, Gamla torget 3, 3rd floor, library
- Type: Lecture
- Organiser: The Department of Literature; Uppsala Forum on Democracy, Peace and Justice; and IRES, Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies
- Contact person: Mats Rosengren
Guest Lecture Section for Rhetoric in collaboration with Uppsala Forum on Democracy, Peace and Justice, and IRES, Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Ekaterina Haskins, rhetorician and historian from The Pennsylvania State University, USA: "Epideictic Rhetoric at the Museum of Moscow and the Cult of the Great Patriotic War in Putin’s Russia"
Abstract
This presentation examines a special exhibit, The City of Victors, dedicated by the Museum of Moscow to the 70th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany. The exhibit constructs an epideictic narrative that supports the revival of the Soviet-era myth of the Great Patriotic War and contributes to the recovery of Stalin as a model national leader. Instead of didactic narration, however, the exhibit employs intimate artifacts and documents donated to the museum by ordinary Moscow residents and positions the spectator as a grateful descendant of the war-time generation.