In Russia and some other post-Soviet countries, the term is given great significance it is accepted as a representation of the most important part of WWII. Neither term covers the initial phase of World War II in Eastern Europe, during which the USSR, then still in a non-aggression pact with Germany, invaded eastern Poland (1939), the Baltic states (1940), Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina (1940) and Finland (1939-1940). The term is not generally used outside the former Soviet Union, and the closest term is Eastern Front of World War II (1941-1945). The term Отечественная война (Patriotic War or Fatherland War) was officially recognized by establishment of the Order of the Patriotic War on, awarded for heroic deeds.īelarusian veterans of the Great Patriotic War in 2017. The phrase was intended to motivate the population to defend the Soviet fatherland and to expel the invader, and a reference to the Patriotic War of 1812 was seen as a great morale booster. It was found in the title of 'The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet People' ( Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voyna Sovetskogo Naroda), a long article by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, a member of Pravda editors' collegium. The term Great Patriotic War re-appeared in the Soviet newspaper Pravda on 23 June 1941, just a day after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

It was the name of a special war-time appendix to the magazine Theater and Life ( Театр и жизнь) in Saint Petersburg, and referred to the Eastern Front of World War I, where Russia fought against the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Īfter 1914, the phrase was applied to World War I. Sometimes the Patriotic War of 1812 was also referred to as the Great Patriotic War ( Великая отечественная война) the phrase first appeared in 1844 and became popular on the eve of the centenary of the Patriotic War of 1812. In Russian, the term отечественная война originally referred to a war on one's own territory ( otechestvo means 'the fatherland'), as opposed to a campaign abroad ( заграничная война), and later was reinterpreted as a war for the fatherland, i.e. The term 'Patriotic War' refers to the Russian resistance to the French invasion of Russia under Napoleon I, which became known as the Patriotic War of 1812.

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