President Vladimir Putin has elevated the status of World War II remembrance to new heights. He has manufactured new “traditions” like the St. George's ribbon mania and the Immortal Regiment processions. In Myth Making in the Soviet Union and Modern Russia, Vicky Davis does something rare among historians: she makes a clear and convincing link between past and present. In this study of the myth and remembrance of the battle at Malaia zemlia in Novorossiisk, Davis is able to trace developments over decades to show how political winds in Moscow and local initiatives in Novorossiisk have changed the nature of remembrance of this relatively minor (compared to Leningrad, Sevastopol, and Stalingrad) battle. She does what every good historian should do: she tells a story of causation/agency and change over time.

Davis's study is both a history of Leonid Brezhnev's war cult and his role in the myth of Malaia zemlia. She deftly interweaves the local story into a history of Brezhnev's development of a war cult to unify the country and generations. Colonel Brezhnev was a political officer during the battle of Malaia zemlia, and this little-known skirmish became one of the most important moments in the WWII war memory once he assumed leadership of the USSR. Davis investigates the construction of the war myth through war correspondence and memoirs, Brezhnev's role in constructing the myth, how rituals and monuments created a unique form of remembrance in Novorossiisk, and the intergenerational transmission of memory in families, from veterans, and in schools.

War correspondence began a bottom up construction of the myth that a collection of memoirs in the early postwar period reinforced. When Brezhnev published his own memoir in 1978, however, it elided the variety of experiences seen in earlier publications. From 1978 until glasnost, Malaia zemlia became mandatory reading in schools and known throughout the USSR. His death and the 1987 revelations that his wartime exploits had been exaggerated changed national attitudes towards Brezhnev, but in Novorossiisk, he remained an important figure because of the perceived economic development that followed the much-maligned leader's 1974 visit to the city. In 2006, in concert with Brezhnev's centenary, a national reassessment led to a more empathetic and nostalgic sentiment toward Brezhnev that brought the national understanding closer to that of the residents of Novorossiisk. Showing the importance of the bottom-up creation of memory in an authoritarian country, Davis carefully walks the reader through the process of approving a statue to Brezhnev in 2004. Starting in 1999, a rumor spread throughout Novorossiisk that Brezhnev had slipped out of his hotel during his 1974 visit and strolled freely around the city. This eventually led to a statue of him in mid-stride with this jacket slung over his shoulder. This was Brezhnev as a man of the people, not a political officer or leader of the Soviet Union.

In her analysis of ceremonies and rituals, Davis shows a host of mnemonic symbols—monuments and street names, an expansion of the memoir literature, and new ceremonies—that helped to transmit an agreed narrative to the city's youth. Families and veterans shared photos and stories with younger generations and “reverse propagation” developed from children who brought stories home from school to educate older members of the family.

In this stimulating first monograph, Vicky Davis has brought together close reading of the press, memoirs, monuments and urban space, and over 100 oral histories to show that memory is neither static nor created only from above. Indeed, she shows convincingly that both powerful officials and every day youth in Moscow and Novorossiisk had important roles to play in today's understanding of this battle and its importance in Russian history. Moreover, she shows how in many ways President Vladimir Putin has picked up from Brezhnev's construction of the war myth and rituals—such as Victory Day—to build an even more resilient national war myth to create unity in an increasingly fractured and troubled Russia.