The Politics of War Commemoration in the UK and Russia

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Memory Politics and the Afterlives of Fallen Soldiers

   • Nataliya Danilova

   Pages 1-18

3. Media Commemoration in Britain

   • Nataliya Danilova

   Pages 19-52

4. The Story of War Memorials

   • Nataliya Danilova

   Pages 53-84

5. Remembrance in Modern Britain: Support the Armed Forces!

   • Nataliya Danilova

   Pages 85-114

6. Media Commemoration in Russia

   • Nataliya Danilova

   Pages 115-145

7. War Memorials in Russia

   • Nataliya Danilova

   Pages 146-174

8. Remembering War: Celebrating Russianness

   • Nataliya Danilova

   Pages 175-207

9. From Remembrance to Militarisation

   • Nataliya Danilova

   Pages 208-218

10. Back Matter

    Pages 219-256

    PDF

This book analyses contemporary war commemoration in Britain and Russia. Focusing on the political aspects of remembrance, it explores the instrumentalisation of memory for managing civil-military relations and garnering public support for conflicts. It explains the nexus between remembrance, militarisation and nationalism in modern societies.

• War memory
• commemoration
• UK/Britain
• Russia
• civil-military relations
• memorials
• remembrance ceremonies
• armed forces
• fallen soldiers
• memory
• Nation
• nationalism
• politics

“This is a worthwhile and interesting book … . there is however much of interest for the reader, especially in the sections dealing with contemporary war commemoration in Russia.” (Steven J. Main, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 69 (2), March, 2017)

“Danilova’s book is extremely well researched and her careful analysis is sensitive to the many particularities of both societies. … a timely book that demonstrates the ways in which modern states use the commemoration of the war dead to promote and support messy, ambiguous, and conflict-ridden military campaigns. … Danilova’s outstanding work allows us to see the building blocks of military ideology at work as they are arranged and rearranged by states and social forces to build (or destroy) consensus.” (Karen Petrone, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, Vol. 1 (2), 2016)

"By systematically comparing British and Russian commemorative practices, Danilova's critical assessment of claims for the emergence of post-heroic warfare conducted by post-modern armed forces makes a valuable contribution to understanding how these societies strive to neutralise political debate over the aims and practices of contemporary wars." - T. G. Ashplant, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Life-Writing Research, King's College London

"The Politics of War Commemoration in the UK and Russia provides a sophisticated and rich cross-cultural analysis of the politics of war commemoration. Through detailed theoretical and empirical mappings of the symbols and practices that characterise UK and Russian rituals of remembrance, Danilova invites us to push our thinking on what is remembered and forgotten further. In showing how commemorative rituals manifest differently not only in each national context but from war to war, Danilova offers an account of commemoration that iscomplex and dogged by contradictions, yet also awash with saliencies and adaptability. Throughout she pays careful attention to who benefits from discursive formations of commemoration, looking not only to the legitimation and reproduction of the state and state-sanctioned violence, but also to the opportunities commemoration affords for 'belonging' among different communities of feeling. In so doing, Danilova not only firmly reinstitutes collective memory into the realm of the political, but blurs tradtional divides between the everyday and the geopolitical, highlighting their interdependencies. Her analysis may be one of two different societies where context matters, but it is also one of two societies that are both searching for meaning in past, present and future wars. Despite the inherent instability of this searching, her book compellingly alerts us to the power of commemoration in neutralising political contestation, normalising military fatalities, and making war an integral part of the national story." - Victoria M. Basham, University of Exeter, UK

• University of Aberdeen, UK

  Nataliya Danilova

Nataliya Danilova is Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen. She publishes in civil-military relations, political history of the Soviet Afghan War, international politics, and memory studies. Her first monograph, Armiia i Obshchestvo: Printsypy Vzaimodeistviia (2007), discusses civil-military interactions in the EU and Russia.

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