When We Were Slaves in Egypt
In addition to the hundreds of novels about time travel to World War II, there are also two series of films for the big and small screen: We Are from the Future (2008) and its sequel, We Are from the Future 2 (2010), and The Fog (2010) and The Fog 2 (2012). The first We Are from the Future had a theatrical release before its expanded version appeared on television, while The Fog is effectively two four-episode seasons of a single television drama. Each tells the tale of a group of young men who inexplicably find themselves thrown back in time to World War II, and each delivers a patriotic message that is as far from subtlety as their protagonists are from home.
In the crowded field of World War II time travel narratives, these two stand out by virtue of the size of their audience. Popular as Time Crasher novels are, they are still a small niche in comparison to television and film viewership. Over a million people saw the first We Are from the Future in theaters. Obviously, film and television are more expensive propositions than prose fiction, so the filmmakers would take care to ensure their work has mass appeal. Sending attractive young men to fight and die in the past makes a lot more box office sense that filming the adventures of a septuagenarian man in the body of a schoolgirl.
Mental time travel is not enough for these films; their heroes must be transported back to the 1940s bodily. It is their bodies that must endure the very real physical dangers they encounter; indeed, in some cases, those bodies even die (if only temporarily). But just as the films are a vehicle for patriotic propaganda, their bodies are vehicles for the stories' true subjects: their inner selves. Though it is not merely their consciousness that travels to the past, it is their consciousness that must undergo the greatest transformation. By the end of the story, it will have been raised.
The age and experience of the young men would suggest that their time in the Second World War is a rite of passage from youth into maturity. In fact, the films enact two parallel lifecycle rituals: one for the men, the other for the country itself. The Fog starts its present-day storyline in the run up to Victory Day (May 9), the official commemoration of the defeat of Nazi Germany. This holiday had long been important in Soviet times; as Nina Tumarkin argues, the Soviet triumph in World War II supplanted the October Revolution as the cornerstone of Soviet mythology. Pride in this victory was justifiable and understandable; more important, it was framed as universal: talk of the repression of entire nationalities during the war as suspected potential enemy collaborators was discouraged until perestroika, and the extent of collaboration with the Nazi occupiers in the Western parts of the USSR was downplayed. Everyone alive owed the Soviet military a great debt, including citizens of the rest of the world, who had the USSR to thank for crushing Hitler's forces. War memorials were treated as objects of reverence, and proud, medal-bedecked veterans marching in the annual parades were accorded respect.
The annual ritual of remembrance took on new poignancy after 1991. The country that defeated the Nazis was no more, and the public condemnation of Stalin's crimes was an uncomfortable fit with the long-held idea that Stalin's military brilliance and the country's huge economic growth in the 1930s were responsible for the victory. Meanwhile, the veterans were obviously getting older and, more to the point, fewer. The huge celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Soviet victory in 1995 made sense because of the significance of the date, but was also a kind of last hurrah: one could not help but be aware that the men and women marching in the 50th anniversary parade were unlikely to make it to the 60th.
In 2011, three journalists inaugurated a Victory Day event called the Immortal Regiment, a procession in which people carried of their relatives who fought in the war. [1] The event grew quickly over the next few years, to the point where it has now been thoroughly coopted by the state as a manifestation of official patriotism. But the practice associated with the Immortal Regiment was not new; similar events took place as far back as 1968, recurring at different times and places over the next few decades with a randomness that suggests multiple people coming up with the same idea independently. With the passage of time, the practice is the logical next step after parades of living veterans cease to be a viable option.
Replacing the combatants with their photos changes the entire notion of participation in the celebration of Victory Day. Victory becomes not just a legacy, but an inheritance experienced both individually and collectively. In the absence of actual participants, their descendants must take up the mantle of the fallen warriors. With the Immortal Regiment , Victory Day becomes a ritual like the Passover Seder: Jews are taught to talk of the time when "we" were slaves in Egypt, not "our ancestors." Historical time and present time collapse through the willful engagement of empathy.
Note
[1] See Maxim Hanukai's recent article "“Resurrection by Surrogation: Spectral Performance in Putin's Russia" (Slavic Review 79.4 (Winter 2020): 800-824) for a thorough and insightful discussion of the Immortal Regiment.