Soviet Russians under Nazi Occupation Fragile Loyalties in World War II New Studies in European History Series

In this compelling account of life and death in a Russian province under Nazi occupation, Johannes Due Enstad challenges received wisdom about Russian patriotism during World War II. With the benefit of hindsight, we know how hopelessly destructive Germany's war against the Soviet Union was. Yet ordinary Russians witnessing the advancing German forces saw things differently. For many of them, having lived through collectivization and Stalinist terror in the 1930s, the invasion created hopes of a better life without the Bolsheviks. German policies on land and church helped sustain those hopes for parts of the population. Drawing on Soviet and German archival sources as well as eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and diaries, Enstad demonstrates the impact of Nazi rule on the mostly peasant population of northwest Russia and offers a reconsideration of the relationship between the Soviet regime and its core Russian population at this crucial moment in their history.

Introduction; 1. Life in the 1930s and the limits of Stalinist civilization; 2. Hopes and fears: popular responses to the invasion; 3. Facing annihilation; 4. The ghost of hunger; 5. 'More meat, milk, and bread than in the Stalinist Kolkhoz': life in the de-collectivized village; 6. Religious revival and the Pskov Orthodox Mission; 7. Relating to German and Soviet power; 8. Hopes and fears, revisited: the end and aftermath of occupation; Conclusion.

Johannes Due Enstad is a historian and a Postdoctoral Fellow in Russian Studies at Universitetet i Oslo, where he is also affiliated with the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX). He currently studies right-wing militancy in post-Soviet Russia and teaches Russian history. Enstad has previously worked as a researcher at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment and the Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities. His research has been published in the Slavonic and East European Review and Terrorism and Political Violence.