Memorial Wars in the Context of Media Memory
https://doi.org/10.56654/ROPI-2025-2(15)-20-39
Abstract
The article explores the phenomenon of memorial wars — conflicts around interpretations of historical events, commemorative practices, and symbolic content of public space. The main problem is to analyze the role of media memory in the context of digitalization, where historical narratives become a tool for shaping collective identity, legitimizing political projects and geopolitical confrontation. The author uses an interdisciplinary methodology combining qualitative approaches, as well as digital tools to study the visual and discursive aspects of memory.
The author identifies the mechanisms of memorial wars as a struggle for dominant interpretations of the past, reinforced by digital technologies and historical fakes. The analysis of cases (decommunization in Ukraine, the Black Lives Matter movement, the European Parliament resolution 2019) demonstrating the politicization of memory and its connection with ideological and geopolitical interests is carried out. The article also examines the role of social media as an arena of narrative competition, where emotional engagement and algorithmic selection exacerbate polarization.
The author concludes that media memory, despite the potential to democratize access to information, enhances the mythologization of history, turning it into a field of ideological battles. The digital environment contributes to the hybridization of memory, where official, alternative and marginal versions of the past coexist in conditions of increasing historical revision and conflict of interpretations.
Keywords
memorial wars,
historical memory,
media memory,
commemoration,
memory policy,
digitalization,
social media,
symbolic conflicts,
state ideology,
national identity
Supporting agencies: The reported study was funded via grant of Russian Science Foundation No. 25-28-012612.
About the Author
D. S. Artamonov
Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education «Saratov State University»
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Denis S. Artamonov, DSc (Philos.), Head of Department of History and Social Studies Teaching Methods, Professor of Department of Theoretical and Social Philosophy
Saratov
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Review
For citations:
Artamonov D.S. Memorial Wars in the Context of Media Memory. Russia: Society, Politics, History. 2025;(2(15)):20-39. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.56654/ROPI-2025-2(15)-20-39
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