The relevance of the research is dictated by the defining role of higher education as a key agent in transmitting reliable historical knowledge about the Great Patriotic War. This knowledge is necessary for forming attitudes and civic identities, and for consolidating student youth that are adequate to modern reality. This is important in the context of modern attempts by unfriendly countries to offset the results of the Great Patriotic War. The purpose of the study was to identify the mechanisms and features of perception, interpretation and retransmission of historical narratives about the Great Patriotic War by university students, as well as to determine the ratio of official (university) and informal (family, media) sources in the formation of their civic identity. This empirical study was conducted using focus groups with first-, second- and third-year undergraduate students from a range of disciplines (N = 8 groups). The data analysis confirmed the hypothesis about the dominant family narrative: personal (family) history acts as the main emotional filter for the perception of the official version of events, however, with the loss of living memory, university discourse becomes basic, but is perceived by students as insufficiently personalized and internalized. The personalization of the perception of the war is revealed through the images of specific heroes and symbols that act as “symbolic anchors” of identification. It was recorded that students face competing narratives in the digital environment, but their critical reflection is intuitive rather than systematic. There is a rejection of formal, compulsory educational activities, while there is a demand for dialogic, research-based, and emotionally engaging work formats. The study confirmed the existence of a gap between the ritualized “cultural memory” transmitted by the university and the family's memory. To bridge the gap, we need a dialogue platform, academic integration of family narratives, and teaching students to critically evaluate sources and combat the distortion of historical memory. The practical significance of this work lies in providing recommendations for improving the educational policies of universities in order to preserve historical memory as a resource for national unity.
The relevance of the research is dictated by the defining role of higher education as a key agent in transmitting reliable historical knowledge about the Great Patriotic War. This knowledge is necessary for forming attitudes and civic identities, and for consolidating student youth that are adequate to modern reality. This is important in the context of modern attempts by unfriendly countries to offset the results of the Great Patriotic War. The purpose of the study was to identify the mechanisms and features of perception, interpretation and retransmission of historical narratives about the Great Patriotic War by university students, as well as to determine the ratio of official (university) and informal (family, media) sources in the formation of their civic identity. This empirical study was conducted using focus groups with first-, second- and third-year undergraduate students from a range of disciplines (N = 8 groups). The data analysis confirmed the hypothesis about the dominant family narrative: personal (family) history acts as the main emotional filter for the perception of the official version of events, however, with the loss of living memory, university discourse becomes basic, but is perceived by students as insufficiently personalized and internalized. The personalization of the perception of the war is revealed through the images of specific heroes and symbols that act as “symbolic anchors” of identification. It was recorded that students face competing narratives in the digital environment, but their critical reflection is intuitive rather than systematic. There is a rejection of formal, compulsory educational activities, while there is a demand for dialogic, research-based, and emotionally engaging work formats. The study confirmed the existence of a gap between the ritualized “cultural memory” transmitted by the university and the family's memory. To bridge the gap, we need a dialogue platform, academic integration of family narratives, and teaching students to critically evaluate sources and combat the distortion of historical memory. The practical significance of this work lies in providing recommendations for improving the educational policies of universities in order to preserve historical memory as a resource for national unity.