The personification of Russia is traditionally feminine and most commonly maternal since the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

. The common terms for the

national personification A national personification is an anthropomorphic personification of a state or the people(s) it inhabits. It may appear in political cartoons and propaganda. In the first personifications in the Western World, warrior deities or figures symboliz ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

are: * Mother Russia ( dim.); also
; or
; or
* Homeland the Mother In the Russian language, the concept of

motherland A homeland is a place where a national or ethnic identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethnic natio ...

is rendered by two terms: * "place of birth", (feminine gender, ) * "fatherland", (masculine gender, )

Harald Haarmann Harald Haarmann (born 16 April 1946) is a German linguist and cultural scientist who lives and works in Finland. Haarmann studied general linguistics, various philological disciplines and prehistory at the universities of Hamburg, Bonn, Coimbra ...

and

Orlando Figes Orlando Guy Figes (; born 20 November 1959) is a British and German historian and writer. He was a professor of history at Birkbeck College, University of London, where he was made Emeritus Professor on his retirement in 2022. Figes is known f ...

see the goddess

Mokosh Mokosh ( ) is a List of Slavic deities, Slavic goddess. No narratives about this deity have survived and scholars must rely on academic disciplines like philology to discern details about her. According to etymological reconstruction, Mokosh wa ...

a source of the "Mother Russia" concept. Mikhail Epstein states that Russia's historical reliance on agriculture supported a mythological view of the earth as a "divine mother", leading in turn to the terminology of "Mother Russia". Epstein also notes the feminine perceptions of the names Rus' and Rossiia, allowing for natural expressions of ''matushka Rossiia'' (Mother Russia).

Usage

During the Soviet period, the Bolsheviks extensively utilized the image of "Motherland", especially during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. File:Triple Entente.jpg, 1914 Russian poster depicting the

Triple Entente The Triple Entente (from French meaning "friendship, understanding, agreement") describes the informal understanding between the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was built upon th ...

–

Britannia The image of Britannia () is the national personification of United Kingdom, Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used by the Romans in classical antiquity, the Latin was the name variously appli ...

(right) and

Marianne Marianne () has been the national personification of the French Republic since the French Revolution, as a personification of liberty, equality, fraternity and reason, as well as a portrayal of the Goddess of Liberty. Marianne is displayed i ...

(left) in the company of Mother Russia. After the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

and during the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

, the image was employed by some anti-Bolshevik forces seeking to restore pre-revolutionary Russia. File:Rodina-mat-zovet-po-plakatu-I-Toidze--ic1965 3198.jpg, "For the Motherland!" on a 1965 Soviet stamp. The literal translation is "Motherland calls!"

Statues

During the Soviet era, many statues depicting the Mother Motherland were built, most to commemorate the

Great Patriotic War The Eastern Front, also known as the Great Patriotic War (term), Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union and its successor states, and the German–Soviet War in modern Germany and Ukraine, was a Theater (warfare), theatre of World War II ...

. These include: * ''

The Motherland Calls ''The Motherland Calls'' () is a colossal neoclassicism, neoclassicist and socialist realism, socialist realist war memorial sculpture on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd, Russia. Designed primarily by sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich with assistance fro ...

'' (, tr. ''Rodina-mat' zovyot''), a colossal statue in Volgograd, Russia, commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad * ''Mother Motherland'' (, tr. ''Batʹkivshchyna-Maty'', , tr. ''Rodina-mat' ''), now called ''

Mother Ukraine ''Mother Ukraine'' or ''Statue of Liberty'' ( ) is a monumental Soviet-era statue in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. The sculpture is a part of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War. In 2023, the Soviet heraldry wa ...

'', is a monumental statue in Kyiv that is a part of the

Museum of The History of Ukraine in World War II The National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War () is a memorial complex commemorating the German-Soviet War located in the southern outskirts of the Pechersk district of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, on the picturesque h ...

Mother Motherland (Saint Petersburg) Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery () is located in Saint Petersburg, on the Avenue of the Unvanquished (Проспект Непокорённых), dedicated mostly to the victims of the siege of Leningrad. On his first visit to Russia in 1993, ...

, a statue at the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery, St. Petersburg, Russia *

Mother Russia (Kaliningrad) The personification of Russia is traditionally feminine and most commonly maternal since the Middle Ages. The common terms for the national personification of Russia are: * Mother Russia ( dim.); also ; or ; or * Homeland the Mother In ...

, a monument in Kaliningrad, Russia *

Mother Motherland Mourning over Her Perished Sons A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gestatio ...

(, tr. ''Rodina-mat', skorbyashchaya o pogibshikh synov'yakh''),

Minsk Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...

, Belarus commemorating the dead in Afghanistan * , a monument in

Naberezhnye Chelny Naberezhnye Chelny (, ; , ) is the second largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. A major industrial center, Naberezhnye Chelny stands on the Kama River east of Kazan near Nizhnekamsk Reservoi ...

, Russia *

Mother Motherland (Pavlovsk) Mother Motherland may refer to: * Personification of Russia * former name of the ''Mother Ukraine'' monument in Kyiv, Ukraine *Mother Motherland (Saint Petersburg) at the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery, Saint Petersburg * ''The Motherland Calls ...

, a memorial complex,

Pavlovsk, Voronezh Oblast Pavlovsk () is a town and the administrative center of Pavlovsky District in Voronezh Oblast, Russia, located on the left bank of the Don River at its confluence with the Osered), southeast of Voronezh, the administrative center of the o ...

, Russia * Motherland Monument (Matveev Kurgan)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Personifications Of Russia Fictional Russian people

National symbols of Russia

Usage

Statues

See also

References

Further reading

External links