Historical memory of the Great Patriotic War among students in Russia and Kyrgyzstan: a sociocultural perspective
This article examines the perception and function of the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War within the everyday cultural practices of university students in Russia and the Kyrgyz Republic. The study's relevance is driven by the need to comprehend the transformation of collective memory in post-Soviet societies, particularly among youth, who are subject to the influence of new media forms, educational practices, and political interpretations of the past. A comparative approach allows for the identification of both universal tendencies and country-specific patterns in how the memory of the Great Victory is represented in these two nations, which share a common historical legacy but are developing within distinct socio-cultural and political contexts. The article aims to identify and interpret the similarities and differences in how students from Russia and Kyrgyzstan assess the significance of the 80th anniversary of the Victory and the symbolic attitudes associated with the image of the Great Patriotic War. Data were collected via a questionnaire-based survey conducted as part of the 5th wave of the Federal Monitoring Project “University Students on the Great Patriotic War”. The study analyzes responses from students who are citizens of the Russian Federation (n=19,232) and the Kyrgyz Republic (n=616), all enrolled in higher education institutions. The analysis reveals that in the Russian cohort, the memory of the war is highly institutionalized and ritualized, reinforced by a multi-level system of transmission (school, university, media, family narratives) and realized through students' active participation in public commemorative events. In Kyrgyzstan, this memory persists primarily in individualized forms, relying on personal and family sources, with educational institutions and media playing a less pronounced role in shaping historical memory. The differences in the structure of sources, the nature of participation, and the degree of symbolic entrenchment of war memory reflect broader differences in national models of memorial culture and the mechanisms of civil identity formation in the post-Soviet space.
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Shuklina, E. A., Pevnaya, M. V., Gorogetskaia, D. V., Dzhunushalieva, G. D., Son, N. A. (2026), “Historical memory of the Great Patriotic War among students in Russia and Kyrgyzstan: a sociocultural perspective”, Research Result. Sociology and Management, 12 (2), 105-121, DOI: 10.18413/2408-9338-2026-12-2-0-7.
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The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, Project № 25-28-00900. https://rscf.ru/project/25-28-00900/.