Memory Laws and Politics of History in Russia and Ukraine

• Department of History
• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies

This workshop takes stock of the law and politics of memory in Russia and Ukraine, both historically and in the context of current Russia’s aggression against its neighbour. The event will highlight the findings of a study report conducted by a research consortium of MEMOCRACY – with a broader academic audience at the EUI and beyond.

Russia’s war in Ukraine spotlights the mobilization of historical memory for a military conflict. Vladimir Putin’s rationale for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 advanced a quasi-historical justification that denied the legitimacy of Ukraine’s statehood and a claim about denazification . This rationale relied on a decades-long memory war against Ukraine spiralled by Russia, a former imperial metropole and mnemonic power in the region. In recent decades, legislating selective historical narratives as memory laws has been a significant arena of Russian memory politics and media propaganda, prompting dense Ukrainian responses in its legislation and mnemonic policies. It is against this backdrop that the event is positioned to reflect on the legislation about historical memory, focusing on paradigmatic cases of Ukraine and Russia, and their effects upon the wider region. 

The event is co-organized by the History Department at the EUI and the MEMOCRACY consortium. It shall conclude a series of previous workshops, each of which has critically discussed memory politics and laws in selected countries within the region of Central and Eastern Europe, explored by the MEMOCRACY project.

Please register in order to get a seat