"Work" as a Spiritual and Bodily Phenomenon in Experience of the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945

Experience of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 generated irreversible processes affecting anthropological issues. Their understanding becomes most relevant in connection with the death of witnesses of its horrors, oblivion, and distortion of facts. War reveals the image of a man, a "reluctant warrior" who is placed in a situation of sudden change in life. He delves into the disciplinary, bodily practices that connect war and production through engineering and technology. The essence of these practices is the phenomenon of "work." It accumulates power, mechanics, repetition, and typology. "Work" is understood as an existentiell or a way of defining human existence, which mobilizes forces aimed at conquering matter. The highest point of mobilization was the war, which revealed itself as a rational project of spreading the "lack" of being and the imaginary struggle against it (E. Junger). It extended the equation, the minimum needs, and the involvement in the order of labor and social obligations to many countries. But "work" also required spiritual cultivation, disposing to the need to choose the truth (L. Kogan), compassion, and overcoming fear and pain. Therefore, in the liberation war of 1941–1945, there is an appeal to Christian origins (the revival of the institution of the Patriarchs), the acceptance of martyrdom (feat), and the elevation of the individual over the typological. The Great Patriotic War opened for the Soviet people a special path to freedom, which went through the struggle for the true image of man. It was suffering that became the criterion for choosing the true image of a person. The path was overcome through great sacrifices, trials, and death. Its result was a Victory as the peak of tension, "work" in the military, industrial, and spiritual resistance. She opened up a new experience of eternity for the Soviet man.