The role of historical memory capital of the Great Victory in the legitimation of state policy in the consciousness of student youth
This article explores how the capital of historical memory of the Great Patriotic War influences the perception of implemented state policy among university students. The official narrative of the Great Victory, while remaining a key instrument of the state's memory politics, faces challenges from digitalization, the weakening of intergenerational family transmission of memory, and competition from alternative interpretations of the past. The authors analyze how the capital of historical memory is converted into the legitimation of power, contributing to an increase in youth loyalty towards the authorities. The research is based on Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, which operates within the context of natural and constructed memory through its three states: objectified, embodied and institutionalised. The empirical basis of the study comprises data from the 5th wave of the monitoring project “Russian University Students about the Great Patriotic War” (2025), which covered 19,236 respondents from 82 higher education institutions across all federal districts. Non-parametric methods for assessing relationships and multiple linear regression were used for analysis. The results showed that institutionally constructed memory has a stronger influence on political loyalty than natural memory. The most significant impact comes from the embodied form of historical memory capital: its absence among university students increases the likelihood of disagreement with the implemented state policy. The strategy of actively using historical memory as a role model correlates with a high level of support for the authorities (0.70), while strategies of loss or alienation reduce this to 0.54. The authors conclude that historical memory remains a crucial sociocultural resource for legitimation, but the degree of its impact depends on the ability of the state and educational institutions to transform external meanings into the internal convictions of young people.
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Vishnevsky, Yu. R., Tarasova, A. N., Pochatkova E. I. (2026), “The role of historical memory capital of the Great Victory in the legitimation of state policy in the consciousness of student youth”, Research Result. Sociology and Management, 12 (2), 32-46, DOI: 10.18413/2408-9338-2026-12-2-0-3
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The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, Project № 25-28-00900. https://rscf.ru/project/25-28-00900/.