This article examines the use of the name of the Soviet figure V.V.
Kuybyshev throughout the Great Patriotic War. The key subjects connected with the commemorative events after his death and the subsequent appearance of his name in the Soviet propaganda are considered. The author considers Kuibyshev (modern Samara) as a place of concentration of efforts to create the image of Valerian
Vladimirovich as one of the heroes of the Civil War. As a consequence, it was in Samara after 1935 that numerous renaming took place, including the renaming of the city itself. In the period of the Great Patriotic War the city of Kuibyshev was
connected, first of all, with evacuation activities and with the transfer of reserves from the eastern part of the USSR. The mass commemorations are noted as an essential feature of Soviet symbolic policy, which allowed for an active influence on
the formation of the collective images and perceptions of the Soviet population about the past.