The Use of Nationalism Discourses in the Soviet Propaganda in the Second World War

The Soviet Union preferred to avoid the discourse of nationalism in its propaganda activities since the first day of establishment. Moreover, the people who opposed the administration with nationalism discourses were severely punished. This process lasted until Nazi Germany occupied the Soviet Union in 1941. After World War II, Nazi Germany began to occupy the Soviet Union, the country was declared to be mobilized. In this process, Soviet propaganda sought to use the discourse of nationalism to mobilize the Russian people against the German armies. In this study, it was tried to find out how and in what way the Soviet propaganda used the discourse of nationalism in World War II. For this purpose, Soviet propaganda posters containing the discourse of nationalism determined by the All World Wars site were examined using the semiotic analysis method in the qualitative research methods. In the study, the propaganda posters were analyzed by the linguist Charles Sanders Peirce on the concepts of semiotics. As a result of the study, it was seen that the idea of the Russian people as a warrior society was aimed to be constructed by using the visuals of Russian historical personalities and referring to their words in the propaganda posters. At the same time, the posters gave messages that the Soviet troops would regain the same victory, reminding the Russian triumphs of the pas