Post-Communist Transitions Series Organized by Denison University’s International Studies Program

Denison University’s International Studies Program has planned a week of talks, panels, and cultural activities to explore political, economic, social, and cultural developments in Eastern Europe and Central Asia since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of communist governments in satellite states thirty years ago.

"World War II Memory in Putin’s Russia” presented by David L. Hoffmann, Department of History at The Ohio State University. Moderated by Denison University's Associate Professor of Communication Alina Haliliuc. Russian President Vladimir Putin has gone to extraordinary lengths to commemorate the Second World War. Through Victory Day parades, ceremonial speeches, and government-sponsored films, he has made World War II memory central to contemporary Russian national identity. Why does the Putin administration place such enormous emphasis on a war that ended over 75 years ago? This talk will examine the political utility of World War II memory in Russia today. It will explore how war remembrance serves the interests of Putin’s government in both the domestic and international spheres, including with regard to the current war in Ukraine.