OK, here's a rather silly question, perhaps. Setting aside for a moment the general veracity and utility of Wikipedia (I don't really want to get into that debate :: ), I'm curious to know about a perceived discrepancy there. I have always been told/assumed that World War II (Вторая Мированая Война) = Великая Отечественная Война. For whatever reason, I was cruising Wikipedia one day and found that in the Russian versions of these listings (which I will link to below), ВМВ ran from 39'-45', whereas ВОВ (can you say these in Russian btw as abbreviations or do they exist?) ran from 41'-45'. Which brings me to my question: what's up here?
-Is this just a plain error?
-Is this just the result of two different authors who happened to post different dates?
-Or, is it something more: is Вторая Мированая Война considered to have been the "global" war, including the actions by Germany in Czechslovakia, for example (ie prior to the Russian entry into the war) while Великая Отечественная Война is considered to be really just the Russian involvement in the war (that is, the patriotic defense of the Homeland only)?

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D1% ... 0%BD%D0%B0

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0% ... 0%BD%D0%B0