Great Patriotic War ( term ) The term Great Patriotic War ( " Velíkaya Otéchestvennaya voyná " ) is used in Russia and some other former republics of the Soviet Union to describe the period from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945 in the many fronts of the eastern campaign of World War II between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany with its allies . The canonical end of Great Patriotic War is 9 May 1945 , but for some legal purposes its period is extended to 11 May 1945 to include the end of the Prague Offensive . Since the early 1980s , the Great Patriotic War is sometimes referred to in Russian texts by the acronym " ВОВ " , but this abbreviation is often criticized as " clearly failed , contradicting both to the signified notion and to linguistic taste " ( " явно неудачн [ ая ] , противоречащ [ ая ] и обозначаемому понятию , и языковому вкусу " ) , " clearly disrespectful " ( " явно неуважительная " ) , " barbaric " ( " варварская " ) , " absolutely unacceptable " ( " совершенно недопустим [ ая ] " ) , " hasty , careless " ( " торопливая , небрежная " ) etc . History . The term " Patriotic War " refers to the Russian resistance of the French invasion of Russia under Napoleon I , which became known as the " Patriotic War of 1812 " . In Russian , the term " отечественная война " originally referred to a war on one ' s own territory ( inside " otechestvo " , " the fatherland " ) , as opposed to a campaign abroad ( " заграничная война " ) , and later was reinterpreted as a war for the fatherland , i . e . a defensive war for one ' s homeland . Sometimes the war of 1812 was also referred to as " Great Patriotic War " ( " Великая отечественная война " ) ; the phrase first appeared no later than 1844 and became popular on the eve of the centenary of the Patriotic War of 1812 . Since 1914 , the phrase was applied to World War I . It was the name of a special war - time appendix to the magazine " Theater and Life " ( " Театр и жизнь " ) in Saint Petersburg , and referred to the Eastern Front of World War I , where Russia fought against the German Empire and the Austro - Hungarian Empire . The phrases " Second Patriotic War " ( " Вторая отечественная война " ) and " Great World Patriotic War " ( " Великая всемирная отечественная война " ) were also used during World War I in Russia . The term " Great Patriotic War " re - appeared in the Soviet newspaper " Pravda " on 23 June 1941 , just a day after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union . It was found in the title of " The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet People " ( " Velikaya Otechestvennaya voyna sovetskogo naroda " ) , a long article by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky , a member of Pravda editors ' collegium . The phrase was intended to motivate the population to defend the Soviet fatherland and to expel the invader , and a reference to the Patriotic War of 1812 was seen as a great morale booster . The term " Отечественная война " ( Patriotic War or Fatherland War ) was officially recognized by establishment of the Order of the Patriotic War on 20 May 1942 , awarded for heroic deeds . Usage . The term is not generally used outside the former Soviet Union ( see Eastern Front ) . There is a difference between this phrase and " World War II " or " the Second World War " , as the Russian term denotes only the war between Germany and its European allies , and the Soviet Union . The war with Japan ( including the invasion of Manchuria ) and the war on the Western front are not referred to by this term . Nor does it cover the Soviet Union ' s 1939 attacks on Poland , Finland , the 1940 invasion of the Baltic states , or the 1941 invasion of Iran .