Every Soviet person from childhood knows the names of great ancestors-fighters for the independence of the Motherland. Alexander Nevsky and Dmitry Donskoy, Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, Alexander Suvorov and Mikhail Kutuzov are written about in all school textbooks on Russian history, books have been created about them, films, works of fine and musical art are dedicated to them, monuments have been erected to them. In the days of severe trials, when the brown plague of German fascism threatened to strike the whole world, the image of our great ancestors called for the struggle for the salvation of the first state in the history of the workers and peasants, for the sake of the future of all mankind. The glorious patriotic traditions of the Russian people helped us at the front and in the rear, gave us strength and confidence in victory. At first glance, it may seem that this topic has already been studied so much that it is unlikely that there is anything new to say. Due to a certain paucity of sources that have come down to us (at least until the beginning of the XVII century), the prospects for replenishing our knowledge about the Battle of the Neva and the Battle of the Ice, the Battle of Kulikovo and the "Time of Troubles" do not look promising. Of course, it is necessary to make efforts, to look for additional opportunities for concrete and in-depth knowledge of the heroic pages of Russian history, and the discovery of new documents is not excluded. However, it seems that a different approach to the development of the problem of patriotic traditions is also possible on the basis of the already known fund of sources and the actual data contained in them. Let's think about how we perceive these traditions, how they fit in our minds? It is hardly a mistake to say that from today's perspective, the liberation struggle of the people for the independence of the Motherland appears as a consistent series of vivid, but not always related episodes. The connecting prin ... Read more