When I learned about Second World War in high school, we focused nearly all of our attention on the Western front. We discussed Hitler, the Holocaust, and then moved straight into the United States’ involvement in the conflict. If we learned anything about the role of the Soviet Union in the war, it was in order to understand the situation that followed after its conclusion, not to examine the Eastern front itself. Perhaps this is why I have found it difficult to understand the overwhelming amount of monuments and statues to the Great Patriotic War (as it is called in Russia) when I first arrived in Moscow. For example, there is an eternal flame honoring the fallen directly across from the building in which we have our classes. Every day I pass by this memorial. It is not something that is easily forgotten.

I can not exactly imagine this kind of monument at Carleton. But that is because it is very difficult for me, as an American, to understand the suffering and hardship that the war brought to the Soviet Union. While certainly many Americans played an important role in the war and many lost their lives, the Soviet Union lost a staggering number of people that makes comparison impossible. This was driven home to me when we visited the Piskariovskoye Memorial Cemetery in St. Petersburg. The memorial immortalizes the 900 day siege that Leningrad withstood from 1941-43. It is also the burial site of 420,000 Leningraders. Words do not really do the site justice.

 
We often feel that history is in the past, separated from us by the safety of time. However, at this cemetery and indeed it seems to me in Russia today at large, the past is still very present. On May 9, Russia will celebrate Victory Day, another poignant reminder of the war. I am hoping to continue thinking about the role the war played and continues to play in Russian history. I am trying to be as unbiased as possible while also recognizing that there are elements of this history that I cannot and never really will be able to understand.