«KOZMA MININ … GETS UP AND LOOKS AT US …» (MININ’S FEAT AS A FACTOR OF PATRIOTIC MOBILIZATION OF RUSSIAN SOCIETY DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR)

Abstract

The author states that moral and psychological mobilization of the Russian society was held during the First World War. The appeal to the feat of the famous Nizhny Novgorod resident Kozma Minin, the initiator of the people’s military forces which expelled interventionist troops fromMoscowin 1612, was used as a method of such a mobilization. Minin became one of the brightest figures of state and patriotic rhetoric during the First World War. His image as a mobilizing symbol was present in the media quite often. The heroic example of Minin received a great importance for maintaining high fighting spirit of Russian soldiers and officers battling at the front. The memorable celebrations on the 300th anniversary of the death of Minin in May, 1916 became an event of nation-wide scale. The commemorative events which took place in Nizhny Novgorod and theNizhny Novgorodprovince on May 7-9, 1916 proved to be the testimony of high public patriotic enthusiasm. Nevertheless, Minin’s “anniversary” did not become a kind of a crucial event which would have allowed to hold an effective mobilization of moral and psychological potential of Russian society and to change the situation at the front considerably to the best.