Overlapping Traumas: Postmemory and the Shifting Landscape of WWII Commemoration in Modern Ukraine
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31861/hj2026.63.106-116Keywords:
cultural memory, postmemory, multidirectional memory, decolonization, memory politics, Second World War, Russo-Ukrainian War, dissonant heritage, historical sources, mentality, Soviet monuments, weaponization of historyAbstract
The full-scale Russian invasion of 2022 precipitated a profound rupture in how Ukraine commemorates the Second World War. This article investigates that mnemonic shift. By integrating theories of postmemory, cultural institutionalization, and multidirectional memory, the analysis explores the mechanisms through which Ukrainian society maps the immediate trauma of ongoing conflict onto the inherited scars of twentieth-century totalitarianism. The study charts the trajectory from post-Soviet commemorative ambiguity toward the categorical dismantling of the «Great Patriotic War» narrative — a collapse catalyzed by the Russian Federation’s aggressive weaponization of the past. Relying on comparative sociological data from the Odesa and Chernivtsi regions, the paper illuminates regional and demographic variances in the decolonization of contentious Soviet monuments.
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