The Memory of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 in the regional Internet space: the experience of discourse analysis

Abstract

This article is devoted to the discourse analysis of the comments of regional news sites and public publications about the commemorations of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Based on the application of the methodology of Siegfried Yeager's critical discourse analysis, the peculiarities of the perception of official memorials dedicated to the memory of the Great Patriotic War in the Internet space of the Tula and Tomsk regions were analyzed. The sources for the analysis were comments from users of social networks, Internet blogs and news sites of the two regions in the period 2015-2021, dedicated to Victory Day (May 9), the Immortal Regiment campaign, topical regional commemorations of the Great Patriotic War, as well as mentions of individual pages of family memory and events of war heroes. Despite the fact that sociological surveys of recent years show the preservation of the memory of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 as the most important historical event and ideological reference point in the mass historical consciousness, the study of the perception of war memorials on the Internet shows a further increase in the devaluation of historical meanings of the Russian memorial culture and the departure to particular versions of historical memory (family, local social group). The tendency of fragmentation and transformation of perception of the past in the regional Internet space was revealed. The analysis of a sample set of comments indicates the persistence of the trend of sacralization of war heroes, veterans and family memory of them in the mass consciousness, as well as attempts to contrast family commemorations of Victory Day and official events and actions of the authorities. In both areas, the fact of using the discussion of the May 9 commemorations and the "Immortal Regiment" campaign as a symbolic framework for criticizing the domestic and foreign policies of the current government was recorded. At the same time, most of the critical comments are situational in nature and are related to topical regional socio-economic problems.