Postsovětské války o Velkou vlasteneckou válku
Post-Soviet Wars over the Great Patriotic War

Summary/Abstract: The review presents a collective monograph entitled "War and Memory in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus" (London, Palgrave Macmillan 2017, Memory Studies series), which is a work by an international team of authors and was published thanks to the care of four editors: Julie Fedor, Markku Kangaspuro, Jussi Lassila and Tatiana Zhurzhenko. In the individual studies that are grouped into bigger parts, the authors seek to capture the place and role of World War II in the politics of memory and collective historical memory of three East European countries. The reviewer praises the work for giving Ukraine and Belarus the same attention as Russia and also fore choing current political events and debates in these countries. According to the reviewer, this still unique attempt to map conceptually the issue in question in a larger part of the post-Soviet space, using methods of historiography, reveals the diversity as well as incompatibility of different versions of commemorating the war within these national societies. The publication convincingly demonstrates that in this region the Great Patriotic War remains a topical, emotional event that the majority of the population perceive as a positive, identity-making chapter of their history.

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