Military Jubilees on the Borderline between the 20th and 21st Centuries: Conteporary Tendencies in the Theory and Practice of the Memorial Culture

The article based on materials from military anniversaries of the late XX – early XXI centuries reveals the main trends in the politics of memory in relation to the history of wars of the XIX–XX centuries against the backdrop of digitalization of the information space. The 50th anniversary of the end of World War II (1995) and the events related to the 80th anniversary of the beginning of this war (2019), as well as the 250th anniversary of the birth of Napoleon (2019) are taken as milestone events. As a result of the study, the author identified two trends. Firstly, a trend of a transnational and transcultural nature, focused mainly on general humanistic values. Secondly, the tendency towards a nationally-oriented and politically biased policy, which became prevailing from 2004-2005. The second trend has become characteristic, first of all, for most countries of the post-Soviet space, including the countries of Central and Southeast Europe and Russia. Judging by the fact that a number of Asian countries (primarily China and Japan) have come to the forefront of anniversary events related to World War II, the tendency to decisively revise the transnational and transcultural vectors in the politics of memory in these countries has also become dominant. Western countries also, regardless of attempts to maintain a commitment to tolerance and transnationalism, were caught up in “memory wars” and, as a rule, in connection with the events of military history. The activation of the “memory wars” is largely associated with fundamental changes in the information environment, primarily in connection with the processes of its digitalization. The author believes that the prevalence of the second trend was predetermined by the end of the modernist revolution, which by the end of the twentieth century ended as the dominant world process that determined main parameters of the historical process in the second half of the twentieth century. The consequence of this from the turn of the century has been an increase in the fragmentation of the world and an explosion of thirst for identity. In this regard, historical memory and its twin-antipode, historical politics, have become the main tools (and often creators) of this identity - national, state, religious, ethnic, group and any other form of identity.