The politics of memory

Abstract

This chapter examines how different political actors in Russia deploy historical memory as a political concept to articulate their concerns about national politics and build public support for their political positions and initiatives. With the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, and again with the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the politics of memory in Russia acquired even greater importance. The visibility of new narratives and commemorative initiatives during the Yeltsin era was so prominent that one scholar even hailed “the loss of the war cult” that allegedly opened possibilities for an “authentic” memory to emerge. The concept of historical memory has proved itself a useful tool for the epistemic control of Russian society, as it enables Russian politicians to circumvent the scholarly community in the production of truth-statements about Russian history. The imperial Russian and Soviet historical legacy provokes powerful affective responses among many Russian political actors and audiences, such as pride for past achievement, nostalgia for imperial power, and others.