Value Orientations and Religious Beliefs in the Memoirs of Soviet Refugees During Wwii

Abstract

The article focuses on the moral experience of Soviet refugees during the Second World War. We approach the ego-documents such as autobiographies, private journals, letters, memoirs with the assumption that moral values help individuals to find meaning in the events of their lives and to develop resilience to suffering and losses. We demonstrate that the refugees had to re-consider their values of the 'normal' times in order to adapt to their new status. We explore how the distinction between "us" and "them", "ours" and "theirs" became operative in structuring the moral experience of those who were forced to leave their homes because of war. We show how this distinction was variously articulated in our sources and how it transformed in cases of religious conversions. © 2021 Matica Srpska. All rights reserved.