Russia’s young army: Raising new generations into militarized patriots

Abstract

This chapter addresses military-patriotic education in Russia. The Russian state pays increasing attention to the military-patriotic upbringing of children and youth, hoping to achieve a larger draft pool and patriotic citizens. In 2015, Ûnarmiâ was founded to unite the country’s fragmented military-patriotic youth organizations. The movement’s aim was to operate in every school by 2020. By deconstructing the hegemonic discourse of military-patriotic education, I analyse the linguistic ways in which the legitimization of Ûnarmiâ has been constructed. Discourses of heroism, masculinity, a beneficial and fun hobby, citizen-soldier and military traditionalism include a variety of key strategies of legitimization for influencing audiences. Discourses suggest that Ûnarmiâ’s purpose is to raise patriotic citizens, who support the prevailing regime and contribute to solving the demographic crisis by repeating ‘traditional’ gender roles, rather than preparing young people for war. Keywords: military-patriotic education, Ûnarmiâ, Russia, patriotism, militarism