普通人的衛國戰爭 凝聚俄羅斯國家認同

May 1 was a glorious spring day in Pskov. Young people roller-skated or lounged on the banks of the Velikaya river. But 14-year-old Vladimir instead chose to spend the day standing vigil at a war memorial.

5月1日的普斯科夫(Pskov)沐浴在春日的明媚陽光下。年輕人或是滑旱冰，或是躺臥在韋利卡亞河(Velikaya)岸邊。但14歲的弗拉基米爾(Vladimir)選擇在這一天值守一座戰爭紀念碑。

Every 10 minutes, he and eight fellow camouflage-clad members of a local patriotic club took turns goose-stepping in front of an eternal flame and an anti-aircraft gun battery used in 1941, when the town in northwestern Russia defended itself against attack by Nazi Germany.

每隔10分鐘，他與當地愛國俱樂部另外8名身着迷彩服的成員輪流在一團永恆火焰和一門多管高射炮前走正步。1941年，這門高射炮曾被這座俄羅斯西北小城用來抵抗納粹德國的進攻。

“We must remember,” said Maria Semyonova, a teacher who oversaw the youngsters’ changing of the guard. “A nation must know its heroes.”

“我們必須銘記，”負責監督這些年輕人換崗的教師瑪麗婭•謝苗諾夫(Maria Semyonova)說，“一個民族必須瞭解自己的英雄。”

Seventy years after Nazi Germany’s capitulation, Moscow is gearing up for the biggest commemoration in decades of what it calls the Great Patriotic War, with a huge military parade on Red Square on May 9.

納粹德國投降70年後，俄政府正在爲其所稱的偉大衛國戰爭(Great Patriotic War)籌備一場幾十年來最大規模的紀念活動，包括5月9日在紅場(Red Square)舉行的盛大閱兵儀式。

Outside Russia, many are watching the elaborate anniversary celebrations with mixed feelings and fear that Vladimir Putin’s government is exploiting the event to underpin its narrative of a Russia under attack from a hostile west.

在俄羅斯以外，許多人懷着複雜的心情觀察這場精心準備的週年慶典，他們擔心弗拉基米爾•普京(Vladimir Putin)領導的政府正在利用這場活動強化自己的敘述，即俄羅斯遭到了懷有敵意的西方的攻擊。

But for Moscow, Victory Day helps unite a Russian nation that has been struggling to define its national identity since the collapse of the Soviet Union in a way that other anniversaries do not. More than 25m Soviet citizens died in the war, and there is barely a family without direct and personal links to the conflict.

但對莫斯科而言，勝利日週年慶典有助於把自蘇聯解體後一直在艱難尋找國家認同的俄羅斯民族團結起來，這是其它週年紀念活動做不到的。逾2500萬蘇聯公民死於二戰期間，幾乎每個家庭都與這場戰爭有着直接和個人的關聯。

“That victory is the only thing everyone can relate to and agree upon,” said Elena Chernenko, foreign affairs columnist at the Kommersant newspaper.

俄羅斯《生意人報》(Kommersant)撰寫外交事務的專欄作家葉連娜•契爾年科(Elena Chernenko)稱：“那場勝利是唯一大家都能感同身受且意見相同的事。”

Memories of the conflict are most vivid in western Russia, location of Germany’s eastern front. Large parts of the area stretching several hundred kilometres east of the border were under German occupation between 1941 and 1944 and saw some of the country’s bloodiest fighting.

俄羅斯西部的人民對這場戰爭的記憶最爲刻骨銘心，當年這裏是德國的東部戰線。1941年至1944年期間，這裏的大片地區——自邊界向東綿延數百公里——曾被德國佔領，見證了多場蘇聯境內最血腥的戰役。

In Litovo, a tiny village some 100km southeast of Pskov, a group of middle-aged men and women last week were cleaning a war monument while swapping wartime stories heard from their parents and grandparents.

在普斯科夫東南方向約100公里處的小村Litovo，上週一羣中年男女一邊打掃一座戰爭紀念碑，一邊分享自己從父母和祖父母那裏聽來的戰時故事。

“This was a scary place because the Germans were right here,” said a woman named Anastasia, as she gave a stele with the names of fallen Soviet soldiers a fresh coat of white paint. She recounted how German military police had set up their local headquarters at Altun, an estate abandoned by its aristocratic owners in the 1917 revolution.

“這是一個可怕的地方，因爲德國人當時就駐紮在這裏，”一位名叫阿納斯塔西婭(Anastasia)的婦女說。她邊說，邊給刻有陣亡蘇聯士兵名字的石碑刷上一層新的白漆。她講述了德國憲兵如何在Altun——1917年革命期間被貴族主人拋棄的莊園——設立他們的地方總部。

“They were always hunting for partisans in the woods, and they would randomly arrest villagers and accuse them of helping people from the underground,” she said.

“他們總是在叢林裏追捕游擊隊員，還隨意地抓捕村民，指控他們暗中幫助地下組織，”她說。

Today the region is slowly losing its population. Deserted wooden farm cottages are collapsing and fallow farmland is transforming back into bog. But the countless war monuments dotting the landscape are immaculate.

如今，這一地區的人口正在緩慢流失。廢棄的木質農舍搖搖欲墜，無人耕種的農田正在變回沼澤。但鑲嵌在這片大地上的無數戰爭紀念碑得到精心守護。

One of them, on a remote moor, commemorates the shooting of more than 300 civilians by German forces — just one sign of the many killings and deportations that took place in this area, according to Wehrmacht diaries and Nuremberg trial records.

其中一座立於偏僻荒野的紀念碑紀念的是被德軍射殺的300多名平民。根據德意志國防軍(Wehrmacht)日記以及紐倫堡審判(Nuremberg trial)記錄，這只是發生在這一地區的諸多屠殺和驅逐事件的標記之一。

A group of men 50km away were busy expanding an old memorial to more than 2,500 Soviet soldiers who died on a ridge here during fighting when the German military invaded in 1941 and again when it retreated.

在50公里外的另一個地方，一羣男人正忙着擴建一座舊紀念碑，使其包括2500多名陣亡的蘇聯士兵。德軍1941年入侵以及後來撤退時，他們在這裏的一個山脊上戰死。

The men have built a miniature Kremlin wall around the few graves and a simple white obelisk. “Earlier, only the Latvian soldiers were commemorated, but now we have added everyone else,” said Kamzin Zhumabek Zhekenuly, a Kazakh official who was touring the region’s memorials in a van embellished with Russia’s official Victory Day logo — a war medal and a St George’s ribbon. “We built seven new monuments around here this week,” he said.

這些男子圍繞寥寥幾個墳墓建造了微型的克里姆林宮式的圍牆，還有一座簡單的白色方尖碑。“早些時候，只有拉脫維亞士兵被紀念，但現在我們把其他所有人都加了進來，”哈薩克族官員Kamzin Zhumabek Zhekenuly說。他乘坐一輛裝飾有俄羅斯官方勝利日標誌——一枚戰爭勳章和一條“聖喬治絲帶”——的麪包車，巡視着這一地區的紀念碑。“本週我們在這個地區建造了七座新紀念碑，”他說。

The lack of international recognition for the high price the Red Army paid in its role as a liberator of Europe rankles with Russians.

對於當年蘇聯紅軍付出高昂代價解放歐洲卻沒有得到相應的國際認可，令俄羅斯人耿耿於懷。

A poll by British company ICM Research for Sputnik, the Russian state media outlet, last month found that only 13 per cent of British, French and Germans believe that the Red Army liberated Europe from fascism, while 43 per cent named the US Army.

英國ICM Research公司上月爲俄羅斯官方媒體Sputnik所做的民意調查顯示，只有13%的英國人、法國人以及德國人認爲是蘇聯紅軍將歐洲從法西斯主義的魔爪下解放出來，而43%的受訪者認爲這是美軍的功勞。

While this partly reflects the fact that liberation from the Nazis was quickly followed by the imposition of Soviet control over central and eastern Europe, it angers many in Moscow. Sergei Ivanov, Mr Putin’s chief of staff, said last week he was concerned that western politicians “purposely try to rewrite history”.

儘管這在一定程度上反映了蘇聯在擊敗納粹後很快對中歐和東歐實施鐵腕控制的事實，但這一點仍激怒莫斯科的許多人。普京的幕僚長謝爾蓋•伊萬諾夫(Sergei Ivanov)上週表示，他擔心西方政界人士“試圖故意改寫歷史”。

It is a view that is popular among ordinary Russians. Ms Semyonova tells her students how her grandfather witnessed a German officer shooting a Russian girl to end a quarrel between two of his soldiers over who should have her.

這種觀點在普通俄羅斯人中相當普遍。教師謝苗諾夫告訴她的學生，她的祖父親曾目睹一名德國軍官槍殺一位俄羅斯姑娘，只是爲了讓他手下的兩名士兵停止爲了誰該擁有那個女孩而爭吵。

“My grandfather said that to make sure this kind of thing would stop,he was ready to fight to the last,” she said. “Enabling all of us to live freely.

“我祖父說，爲了確保此類事情不再發生，他準備戰鬥到最後，”她說。“讓我們所有人能過上自由、和平的生活是他這一代人最偉大的貢獻，這值得紀念。”