Pop History Moment: The Moscow Victory Parade

The Moscow Victory Parade was held on this day in 1945; it celebrated (in a typically sombre, hyper-serious, totally Russian kind of way) the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in what they called the Great Patriotic War. On that rainy day Joseph Stalin watched the massed might of the country march past him from atop Lenin's Tomb in Red Square.



I was labouring through the previous post when in the immense mental jumble of mostly nouns and dates came a single thought, like a piercing ray of light... I bet the Moscow Victory Parade is on YouTube. And whattaya know? It IS on YouTube. I so love it when that happens. In fact, I even have a name for it. I call it a 'Research Epiphany'.

This particular epiphany came when I read that the Moscow Victory Parade was the first event in Russian history to be filmed in colour. Let's face it - that's something I gotta see; after growing up with an essentially English view of World War II, I find it exhilarating to experience seemingly familiar events from an unfamiliar perspective. In fact, sharing that sensation is one of the chief raisons d'etre for this blog.
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