In recent years, a movement especially popular with veterans has pushed to return the city name ‘Volgograd’ to ‘Stalingrad’.
Vladimir Putin has endorsed the idea, and has even changed the name of ‘Volgograd’ to ‘Stalingrad’ on the list of Hero Cities on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow. This has come at a time when remembrance of the ‘Great Patriotic War’ (World War II), as it is known in Russia, is increasing in fervor.
In recent years, Stalin has slowly been rehabilitated throughout Russia from a murderous dictator to an heroic leader. The underpinning logic of his revival is that he may have been responsible for the murder of millions, but he saved the Soviet Union from the Nazis.