Russia’s religion of victory
In Russia, the May 9th Victory Day celebration has become a disciplinary date. It enforces participation in the cult and delineates the boundaries of loyalty to the state. Outside, the myth of Soviet victory of fascism has become one of the central instruments of Russian foreign policy.
December 8, 2025 -
Bartłomiej Brążkiewicz
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Hot TopicsIssue 6 2025Magazine
Collective memory should never be seen as a neutral reservoir of memories. Rather, it is a construct which is constantly shaped by choices, interpretations and reinterpretations of history. Forgetting, in this sense, is not simply a flaw in the mechanism of memory but an essential feature of it. By discarding what is deemed excess, forgetting allows for the emergence of patterns and generalizations that give meaning to a community’s shared experience. In shaping historical memory, forgetting is often the rule, while remembering becomes the exception. This basic anthropological and psychological trait of human cognition has, in turn, long been subject to political manipulation. As a result, those who are in power continually seek to influence not only what is remembered, but also how it is remembered.
In this process, the manipulation of facts is one of the tools. On the one hand, it involves spreading falsehoods and offering interpretations that distort the narrative. On the other, it means deliberate concealment – erasing inconvenient episodes from collective memory. While such mechanisms can be found, to varying degrees, in democratic systems, they are especially characteristic of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, where a monopoly over historical memory often translates into a monopoly over truth itself.
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