Heroes of the Soviet Union in the Second World War : The Specificities of the Collective Image

A statistical analysis of more than 12,000 Heroes of the Soviet Union who received this award between 1939-1945. The Heroes shared a proactive approach to life. They were distributed geographically unevenly over the USSR, and there were proportionally more Heroes among the younger generation of ethnic Russians. Hardships, caused by modernization, urbanization and political pressure, but also conditions of Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary Russia and Communist ideology were conducive to producing this proactive approach to life and therefore a stratum of socially active persons who were able to show their heroism in the difficult conditions of the Second World War.