Re: When was the second world war named?

Rich Rostrom wrote:

Question: How do/did Russian/Soviet historians
refer to all the fighting which did not involve
the USSR - the fighting in Europe and Africa
from 1939 to mid-1941, the fighting in the Pacific
before the end of July 1945?

They could think about it the same way that Americans do
about the period from Sept. 1939 until Dec. 1941, and the
same way that Britain, France and its more reliable allies
did about the Japanese incursions into China from 1937 until
Hitler's invasion of Poland. Maybe they consider it to have
started in 1939 when they invaded the eastern part of
Poland.


I wonder how the Italians deal with it. Do they consider it
to have started with Britain declared war on Germany after
the invasion of Poland, after their own declaration of war
on Britain and France in June of 1940, or in October 1943
when they declared war on Germany? Was the end of the war
when they surrendered to the Allies or when the Germans
surrendered to the Allies?





ISTM it would be ridiculous to discuss the
blitz of France or the battle of Midway
under the rubric of "the Great Patriotic War".

For one thing, it would tend to dilute the
Soviet/Russian proprietorship in their struggle
to include other nations' battles in "the GPW".

While Russian historians have less interest in
these areas than in the Eastern Front, there must
be _some_ interest, among military specialists
if no one else.

What terminology do they use?
--
| He had a shorter, more scraggly, and even less |
| flattering beard than Yassir Arafat, and Escalante |
| never conceived that such a thing was possible. |
| -- William Goldman, _Heat_ |

.

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