Fighting the Online War: Online Russian Nationalists and the Discourse of Stalingrad in the Early 2010s
Journal: Journal of Nationalism Memory & Language Politics
Year: 2024

Abstract Memory of the Battle of Stalingrad, a pivotal moment in Second World War, is a cornerstone of Vladimir Putin’s nationalist mythology. This study examines how participants of the “In the Whirlwind of Time” forum, a Russian-language online community whose usage peaked in the early 2010s, perpetuated and reinterpreted this war myth through science fiction and alternate history narratives at a grassroots level by co-writing literary texts. “Myth” is defined here as a symbolic narrative that