1. society
2. unrest and war

The First World War and Politics of Memory in Contemporary Russia and Ukraine
Hanna Bazhenova
(Institute of East-Central Europe, Research fellow)
< [email protected] >
Paper presented at the ASN World Convention
Columbia University, 23–25 April 2015
Please do not cite without the author’s permission
© Hanna Bazhenova
August 2014 marked the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War – one of the greatest turning
points in the world history. This War resulted not only in the loss of millions of humans lives, but caused the fall
of several empires, the emergence of new nation-states and brought significant changes in the system of
international relations. The consequences of many of these changes can be heard today reverberating around the
world, nearly a century later.
For many decades, Russia’s and Ukraine’s experience in the First World War was overshadowed by the
Revolution of 1917, the rise of Bolshevism and the Civil War. Mainly these topics tended to dominate in Soviet
public commemorative discourse. Only recently has the First World War emerged as one of the important
political commemorative events in war history of the both countries. Their governments started to sponsor a
range of commemorative initiatives, including the construction of war memorials, new museum exhibitions, and
a series of commemorative ceremonies.
This paper will focus mainly on the issue of the First World War in public and commemorative discourse of
Russia and Ukraine from a comparative perspective. It will analyze the dynamics of changes that occurred in
historical memory of both countries during the last decade and establish the role of these changes in the revival
of the memory about the “forgotten” war. The paper will investigate the ways in which Russian and Ukrainian
elites seek to shape the public view of the First World War through the centenary.
Memory and commemoration in Russia
To understand the immediate Russian and Ukrainian context for the centenary, it is important to understand that
the historical meaning ascribed to the First World War have always been profoundly different in the countries
that emerged from the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian Empires from those in western Europe, the
United States and the countries of the British Commonwealth. In the countries that were created as a result of
the First World War, the narratives about the relationship of the war to the new national identities have always
been extremely complex. For example, Ukraine had to contend with the fact that the First World War was a
fratricidal war in which Ukrainians in the Russian Empire and Ukrainians in the Austro-Hungarian Empire
killed one another. The legacy of this war did not easily fit into new national narratives. That is why the
Ukrainian state emphasized other events such as Ukrainian War for Independence (1917–1921) to celebrate
national valor instead.
This was most certainly the case in the Soviet Union as well. Lenin and the Bolscheviks had opposed the First
World War from the beginning as an “imperialist” war and had advocated “turning the imperialist war into a
Civil War”. The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War became central to official Soviet
historical narratives, while the First World War was de-emphasized, though not entirely forgotten. It should be
stressed that this War was more costly, in terms of human lives, for the Russians than for the Western European
powers because of the large number of men they fielded. American demographer and sociologist Frank Lorimer
wrote in 1946 that ‘during the years 1915–1923 the Russian people underwent the most cataclysmic changes
since the Mongol invasion in the early thirteenth century’.
The first two Soviet decades saw an era of transformation and turmoil in historical narratives, followed by an
era of retrenchment. The variegated and complex Soviet memory of the First World War in the 1920s and early
1930s that contained both patriotic and pacifistic elements was suppressed by Soviet censors in the second half
of the 1930s, and reduced to a narrow swath of official (and tendentious) patriotic discourse in the years leading
up to the outbreak of the Second World War. This war, known as the Great Patriotic War, eclipsed the First
World War period nearly completely. There were no public memorials such as monuments, cemeteries, and
museums, dedicated to this war. Due to a lack of interest and hostility from Soviet authorities, such places never
existed (especially museums) or have been abandoned or destroyed.
This situation did not radically change after the dissolution of the USSR. The First World War was still
marginalized and erased from public memorial culture in Russia. It must be stressed that such an omission was
neither total nor systematic. It concerned mainly public memorial culture. The literature on the First World War
written by Soviet and Russian historians is respectable, although suffering from a lack of major synthesis works
as well as methodological weaknesses and an uneven coverage of topics. In 1992, the Russian Association of
First World War Historians was founded.
The first attempt to commemorate the war was made in 1994 when the Moscow Government issued a resolution
proclaiming the territory of the former Fraternal Cemetery in the Sokol District as a protected state historicalcultural landmark. The Memorial Park Complex of First World War Heroes was established in the central area
of the Fraternal Cemetery (also known as the All-Russian War Cemetery) created during the war, in 1915. Until
mid-1920, deceased persons were interred in the Fraternal Cemetery almost daily. There were plans to establish
an architectural landmark featuring a commemorative church and the All-Russian Museum of First World War
and to open a retirement home for war veterans near the cemetery, but the Bolshevik Revolution of October
1917 pushed all these plans aside. The cemetery was closed in 1925. Altogether there were buried more than 17
thousand soldiers, including Allied troops and enemy prisoners of war. After revolutionary disturbances, ten
thousand of the revolution’s victims (both Reds and Whites) were also interred in the cemetery. Buried together
with the First World War dead of several nations were revolutionaries killed by tsarist troops in March 1917,
cadets from Moscow military schools who fought against the Bolsheviks in November 1917, Soviet Civil War
commanders, and victims of the Red terror executed by the Soviet secret police. During the Soviet era,
monuments of the Cemetery and church were destroyed to transform the cemetery into a park, and several
buildings were built on its territory.
During the perestroika-era, enthusiasts began to rebuild the memorials. In 1990–2004, various monuments were
installed and a chapel built there. There are currently twelve eclectic monumental pieces spread throughout the
territory of the park, including the Shlikhter gravestone, the only monument surviving from the original
cemetery. Six of the twelve pieces, including a chapel, are adorned with the Orthodox cross, indicating the
centrality of Orthodoxy and the active engagement of the Orthodox Church in Russian national and civic
projects of memorialization in the post-Soviet period. The most prominent element in the memorial complex is
the 1998 chapel of the Transfiguration of the Savior, created in honor of the destroyed Church of the
Transfiguration that had once stood in the cemetery. The tradition of building churches as war memorials dates
all the way back to Byzantium, and until the eighteenth century, “the only war memorials built in Russia were
churches.” The decision to build a chapel on the site of the Moscow War Cemetery was thus in keeping with a
millennium-long tradition of war memorials in Russia and a vibrant post-Soviet church-building boom. The
memorial was inaugurated on the occasion of the nineteenth anniversary of the outbreak of the war (August 1,
2004) in the presence of the European countries ambassadors and the members of the Moscow government. It
became the main First World War memory site in Moscow.
The approaching centenary of the outbreak of the First World War prompted Russian authorities to delve into
the history and talk about the so-called forgotten war. One of the problem areas for the anniversary is the
relationship between the war and the revolution, and by extension the relationship between the Russian
Revolution and the contemporary Russian state. Twenty-two years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia and
its citizens hold very complex attitudes towards the Soviet past. Contemporary analysts blame Soviet policies
for erasure of the First World War from Russian consciousness. They see Soviet interpretations of the war,
including that it was ‘imperialist’ and ‘mistaken’, as a ‘distortion of the true historical picture’, and they seek to
debunk and revise Soviet views of the war. Echoing Weimar-era discourse in Germany, the new revisionist
narratives see the revolution as a kind of ‘stab in the back’ that snatched victory away from a glorious and
heroic Russian national army. The existing narrative squarely blames the Revolution of February and October
1917 for turning Russia’s potential victory into military defeat, even though the Putin government certainly does
not repudiate everything Soviet. Another area of complexity in celebrating the centenary is the relationship of
the First World War to the Second World War, a war that has a tremendous power as a mobilizing force. Thus,
the contemporary First War memory will not only overlap with memory of the Russian Revolution, it will also
have to navigate through powerful currents of the memory of the Second World War.
A month and a half after his inauguration in 2012, Vladimir Putin himself brought up the issue of
commemoration while answering senator Anatolij Lisitsyn’s questions. He supported the idea of restoring the
memory of the ‘forgotten war’. The President also gave his interpretation of the First World War. Sweeping the
term “imperialist” and emphasizing the defense of geopolitical interests by the countries that participated in the
1914–1918 war, the Russian president compared the conflict with the Great Patriotic War. He explained the
“forgetting” of the first by a political will on the part of the Bolsheviks, who wanted to erase the memory of the
“treason” they had made by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. He detected the ‘national
treason’ in the actions that caused the loss of vast territories and damaged the country’s interests. However, he
added that the Soviet leaders “redeemed their fault before the country” during the Second World War and Great
Patriotic War. He stressed the uniqueness of the situation in that Russia ‘lost this war to the losing side’.
Bolsheviks capitulated to Germany and shortly thereafter Germany capitulated to the Entente. Thus, First World
War should be restored in the collective memory both as a symbol of the patriotism of the ‘people who gave
their lives for the interests of Russia’ and as confirmation of the country’s status in the international scene.
In December 2012, Putin also touched on the topic of ‘undeservedly forgotten’ war in his Address to the Federal
Assembly. The President stressed the need to build a ‘worthy national monument to the heroes of First World
War’ in order to strengthen the morale of the Russian Armed Forces . Following this directive, the Moscow
Duma allocated a site for the new monument on Poklonnaya Hill. And the Russian Military History Society
announced a contest of projects for the memorial complex. Two weeks after delivering his address, President
Putin approved amendments to the Federal Law ‘On Days of Military Glory and Memorable Dates of Russia’
adding the Day of Memory of Russian soldiers killed in First World War. It was first celebrated on August 1,
2013. Thus, the foundations were laid for preserving the memory of those who died in that war, a memory that
practically did not exist before. In fact, this is the second attempt since the introduction of National Unity Day
(November 4) to enlarge the repertoire of politically approved past events, the memory of which was not
institutionalized during the Soviet period. It is also worth noting that the majority of countries honour those who
died in First World War on 11 November, when the First Armistice at Compiegne was signed between Germany
and the Entente. Russia chose the date that it entered into the war.
During 2012 two important organizations were recreated in order to prepare for the centenary: the Russian
Historical Society and the Russian Military History Society. The first one is a successor of the Russian Imperial
Historical Society, which existed from 1866 to 1917. The speaker of the State Duma, Sergei Naryshkin, chairs
it. The latter is a successor of the Russian Military History Society which functioned from 1907 to 1917. The
chairman of this organization is the Minister of Culture, Vladimir Medinsky. Thus it is clear that the effort to
commemorate the First World War are being organized by key state officials as part of a larger national project
to create a usable past to further the national goals of the contemporary Russian state.
Sergei Naryshkin is leading efforts to restore the First World War’s place in Russian history. He became a
member of the Organizing Committee of the Celebration of the Centenary of the First World War founded on
February 26, 2013. It was also Naryshkin who, on 1 August 2013, for the first time in the history of postrevolutionary Russia, laid a wreath on behalf of the Russian government at the obelisk in Moscow’s Memorial
Park Complex of the Heroes of the First World War dedicated to ‘those who fell in the World War 1914–1918’.
Sergei Naryshkin aims to bring ‘the memory of that war to every person’, so that the First World War would no
longer be a forgotten war among our people.
The main difficulty that exists in spreading the information about the First World War is the almost total absence
of battlefields on the territory of the Russian Federation. Following the fall of the Tsarist and later Soviet
Empire-State and the loss of “national peripheries” that followed, the regions (Baltic, Ukrainian and Belarusian)
that had been war theatres on the eastern front are no longer a part of contemporary Russia. The first solution
was to use the exception of the Kaliningrad (Königsberg) region, where important battles between the Russians
and the Germans took place in 1914, regardless of whether at the time and until 1945, this territory was part of
former East Prussia. Nowadays, this region with tens or even hundreds of First World War burial sites is at the
heart of the conflict’s centennial commemoration.
In May 30, 2014, a large monument to the Heroes of First World War was unveiled in Kaliningrad (author:
Salamat Shcherbakov). It cost 30 million rubles. In August 2014, the city of Gusev, formerly Gumbinnen,
hosted a military history festival dedicated to the Battle of Gumbinnen. It was one of the first major battles on
the Russian-German Front, fought in August 1914, moreover a victory for Russia. A military-memorial complex
of the history of First World War will also be established there. Several monuments and commemoratives
plaques will be installed in important burial sites, including near destroyed military cemeteries.
Apart from Kaliningrad region, most of the Russian First World War soldiers’ graves are outside the national
territory, in the regions of the Eastern Front battles or even further west in Europe. The latter are Russian
soldiers of the expeditionary forces or war prisoners. It is why the federal program for the centennial
commemoration included, for example, the construction of an Orthodox chapel in the war prisoners’ cemetery
of Bolzano (Northern Italy), the layout of a Russian necropolis in Belgrade, as well as the search for graves and
works on burial sites situated in Ukraine.
The current recuperation of the war as a heroic event embraces a certain nostalgia for the Romanov monarchy.
One of the main centerpieces of the centenary, thus far, seems to be the creation of a Museum ‘Russia in the
Great War’ in Tsarskoe Selo – a state museum-preserve outside of St. Petersburg. This aspect of the centenary
affirms that the grandeur of the Imperial Russian monarchy is the legacy of contemporary Russians in spirit of
the Soviet interlude. The new museum was opened on August 4, 2014. It is housed in the Martial Chamber, a
complex that was built in 1913–1917 to house a collection of military documents, trophies and art given to Tsar
Nicholas II by Elena Tretiakova (the sister-in-law of the founder of the Tretiakov gallery). Arhitect Semen
Sidorchuk designed the museum complex in the Russian Revival style and, in 1915, Nicholas II began
collecting First World War military trophies there. The museum remained open only until 1918, when it was
closed and its collections were dispersed.
The restoration of the Martial Chamber was carried out since 2011 and soon it was completely renovated and
adapted for museum use. The historical appearance of the pseudo-Russian building is fully preserved. The new
museum collection possesses about 2 thousand items, among them weapons, uniforms, awards, photos, and
documents. It is the first large-scale exhibition devoted to First World War in Russia. The Chairman of the State
Duma Sergey Naryshkin, the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, city leaders, and famous artists, attended
the opening ceremony. Sergey Naryshkin stated that “it is important not only to restore the memory about those
events, but to correlate them with what is happening today – to predict risks for today’s Europe and the whole
world and to prevent large-scale bloody wars, such as the one that broke out on the land of fraternal for us
Ukraine”.
But today another site seeks to become the central forum for First World War commemoration. It is the
centenary’s flagship project: the construction of a large monument to the heroes of the conflict. From the
beginning, everything was done to give it a highly symbolic and popular character. Launched by the Society of
Russian Military History at the initiative of descendants of veterans, supported by the government and the
president himself, this project is subject to fundraising. The competition has resulted in a “popular vote” via
internet and an exhibition of the top 15 projects at the 1812 War and Great Patriotic War Museums. The place
chosen for its construction speaks for itself: it is the Victory Park memorial (known as Poklonnaia Gora) in
Western Moscow, a memorial site dedicated to the Second World War and also related to the memory of the war
of 1812. In this way, First World War is integrated into the story of the great “patriotic” wars.
The jury chose a very prominent Russian artist, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation, Andrei Koval’chuk.
Koval’chuk has been the chairman of the Union of Russian Artists since 2009 and, in 2007, he was awarded the
Governmental Prize of the Russia Federation. Koval’chuk is the creator of many well-know monuments and his
sculpture ‘In the Battle against Fascism We Were Together’ already stands on Poklonnaia Gora. The monument
was built with contributions from the public, around 100 million rubles has been collected from private
individuals, business and institutions. The city granted 74 million rubles.
The monument consists of two elements: a figure of the Russian soldier, who went through the war and became
a Knight of St. George, and a multi-figure composition, that embodies the Russian flag. The soldier’s pleated
greatcoat is thrown over the shoulder, and his chest is decorated with the Crosses of St. George. The rear side of
the flag shows a cavalry charge of soldiers advancing with bayonets, followed by an image of civilian suffering
during the war. A pieta-like mother mourning her son forms the bridge between the battlefield and the home
front, which is represented by an Orthodox Church, clergy, women and children. This design embraced multiple
aspects of the war, introducing the traditional elements of holy war, empathizing the heroic nature of the soldier
and their national identifications through the inclusion of the tricolour flag and the St. George Cross, and also
recognizing the sorrow and sacrifice of war through the image of the mourning mother.
The Monument’s opening ceremony has become one of the key events dedicated to centenary of the outbreak of
the First World War. President Vladimir Putin in his address spoke about the heroism and memory. At the same
time he repeated the legend of the “stolen victory”, accusing those “who called for the defeat of their
Fatherland, their army, sowed discord in Russia, strove to power, betraying national interests”. It turned out that
current context of the fight with the opposition that challenged the Kremlin’s policy in Ukraine were interlaced
in the memory of the First World War.
Besides that, a monument named “A Farewell of Slav” was opened on the eve of the Victory Day (May 8, 2014)
at the Belarusian terminal in Moscow. It was dedicated to the two world wars of the 20th century (cost around
19 million rubles) . On May 6, 2014, a commemorative headstone to army nurses killed in action during First
World War was unveiled in the Memorial Park Complex of the First World War Heroes. A monument to the
‘Russian Guards of the Great War’ was erected on the square near the Vitebsk terminal on August 1, 2014 in St.
Petersburg. On August 22, 2014, the official opening ceremony of the monument to the Heroes of the First
World War took place in the center of Pskov. Moreover, the monuments to the heroes of First World War
appeared in Tula, Lipetsk, and Saransk. The bust and the monument to Emperor Nicholas II were opened in
Bania Luka and Belgrade, Serbia, respectively, in 2014, sponsored by the Russian Government.
The memorialization players in Russia are indeed looking for faces and names that could embody the First
World War experience and encourage consensual identifications because this war in Russia is primarily a war
without familiar faces or compelling heroes. This gap can be explained by the fratricidal conflict that broke out
in 1917. The names of many First World War officers and generals who joined the White movement were
known in Soviet Union to be those of sworn enemies responsible for the worst atrocities. Today, with the
revision of the revolutionary history and the rehabilitation of the White movement, these men are revalued, but
their commemoration as heroes of the First World War is sometimes difficult. Symmetrically, General Brusilov
who joined the Bolsheviks enjoyed favorable treatment during the Soviet era, but is now questioned by some
historians because of his support for the “Reds”.
It is therefore not surprising that the construction of the memory of the First World War is often done through
images of ordinary soldiers, even anonymous, who can embody the idea of loyalty and sacrifice for their
country without being blamed for military defeats or subsequent political decisions. This logic can be seen, for
example, in the movie ‘Battalion of Death’, the war centenary’s the main state-sponsored film project. This
feature film is based on actual events and showcases women who fought in special battalions, showing great
courage and selflessness at the most desperate moment of the war in 1917. As emphasized by the producer, the
use of female characters aimed to depict this war without formal patriotism, ‘without guns, machine guns or
cavalry attacks’.
Memory and commemoration in Ukraine
Speaking about the politics of memory of contemporary Ukraine we should keep in mind that Ukrainian
territories became a theater of war between Austro-Hungarian and the Russian Empires. The Southwest front
passed several times through the territories of Galicia, Volhynia and Bukovina. According to official statistics
3.5 million Russian citizens leaving on what is now Ukraine were mobilized to the Russian army, and about 300
thousand to the Austro-Hungarian army (about 9% of the Austro-Hungarian army personnel). About one million
of them were killed, and their graves are scattered in Europe – in Austria, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Romania,
Belarus, Ukraine, Serbia, and Russia.
The first attempts to memorialize the dead in Ukraine were made by Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi in 1918. The
newly establishment Kiev organization ‘The Memory of Soldiers 1914–1918’ intended to explore the areas of
military operations, to complete the lists of crosses with names and to prepare catalogs with an accurate
information about the location of graves, the number of dead, their names and photographs etc. Such
organizations were also established in other cities.
Eventually, the Bolshevik authorities revoked the Brest peace treaty and ignored international agreements and
arrangements of Versailles. As a result the 1920–1930 memorialization campaign that spread in Western Europe
did not affect the USSR. After the Second World War this war was nearly completely forgotten. Only at the end
of the 1980s that situation started to change. The editors of the magazine “Monuments of Ukraine” launched the
campaign “The Forgotten Graves”. During this campaign the Ukrainian, German and Austrian nongovernmental organization (NGOs) sought and put in order hundreds of graves of Ukrainian and foreign
soldiers.
In the 1990s, after the declaration of independence, such actions became more spread. Dozens of cemeteries and
burials in Zakarpattia (also known as Transcarpathia), Galicia, Bukovina and Volhynia have been renovated and
restored thanks to the works of NGOs, scout organizations, students and volunteers and support of the local
authorities. The memorial complexes were created; the obelisks were installed. The important role in the
financing of these projects was played by the governmental and non-governmental organizations of the
countries, whose solders are buried there. For example, an obelisk to the soldiers of the 132 Spare Infantry
Regiment of the Russian Army and a monument on the fraternal grave of 36 Austro-Hungarian soldiers were
installed in Zaleszczyki, Ternopil oblast, in July 2013. They appeared thanks to the support of the governor of
Jaroslav Oblast Anatolii Lisicyn (Russia).
A huge Czech-Ukrainian initiative was launched in Uzhhorod. The Czechoslovak Legionnaires’ Union (Prague)
and the NGO “Search-West” (Lviv – Zakarpattia) intend to restore the military cemetery project. It will be the
first cemetery of such a scale in Ukraine. This new complex will include 1000 graves of Czech, Slovak, Italian,
Hungarian, German, Polish, Austrian, Romanian, Russian, Serb, and Croat soldiers. As to state initiatives there
are not many. For example, in 2004, the 90th anniversary of the tragedy in concentration camp “Talerhof” was
marked on the state level by the resolution of Ukrainian Parliament. Talerhof was an internment camp created
by the Austro-Hungarian authorities during First World War, where Carpatho-Rusyns and Ukrainian
Russophiles from Galicia and Bukovina were imprisoned and executed.
Nevertheless, even now the First World War plays practically no role in the historical memory of Ukrainians,
although in the west of the country this memory is much stronger than in the rest of the country. None of the
military battles is rooted in historical, particularly national, memory – neither the so-called Brusilov Offensive
of 1916, or the heroic defense of the fortress of Przemysl or the successful German-Austrian offensive in the
area of Gorlice-Tarnow of April 1915.
Ukraine started to prepare for the First World War centenary relatively late. Government officials began to work
on Presidential Decree entitled ‘About the Measures Connected with the 100th Anniversary of the First World
War of 1914–1918 and Commemoration of the Memory of the Dead’, as well as ‘The Government Statement on
the Measures Connected with the 100th Anniversary of the First World War of 1914–1918 and Honor of the
Memory of the Dead’ started only in 2013. Nevertheless, the Presidential Decree was never signed; and the
work on Government Statement was stopped May 28, 2014. The main reasons for such a decision was the
difficult economic and political situation in Ukraine and the need to save public funds.
On the day of centenary (August 1, 2015) President Petro Poroshenko stressed that during the First World War
the territory of Ukraine was divided between the rival empires and became the theater of hostilities. Ukrainians
were forced to fight as parts of regular armies on the opposite sides of the front. In President’s opinion, the First
World War, the October Revolution in Russia and the struggle against the Bolshevik invasion was a difficult test
for Ukrainians. However, famines and repressions of the communist regime did not break the Ukrainian
aspirations for freedom and the restoration of the statehood. At the same time President Poroshenko drew
historic parallels stressing that Ukrainians are forced again to defend their independence from foreign invasions
and to break the imperial plans of the other country.
Among the most recent innovations it is important to mention the adaptation of the first historical calendar of
Ukraine, which is the list of official commemorative events. The Parliament adopted it on February 11, 2015.
According to the Decree this year Ukraine will celebrate at state level more than 40 new commemorative dates
and anniversaries. The dates between April 29 through May 4 were announced as commemorative dates,
marking centenary of the battle for Mount Makivka. This was the battle between the Legion of Ukrainian Sich
Riflemen (a unit of Austro-Hungarian Army) and the Russian army during the First World War.
Conclusion
Evidently, the events of the First World War are joining the historical narratives of Russia and Ukraine now. The
approaching centenary of the outbreak of the hostilities made these processes much more active. A powerful
impetus to promote the theme of war and to accomplish a “duty of memory” toward the forgotten heroes was
given on the government level. It is important to note that the forms of memorialization of the First World War
in Russia and Ukraine are common to those that existed in the Western countries in post-war years. It is the
memorialization of victories and defeats, the debates about who had won and who had lost. The contemporary
Western forms of memorialization are different. They are more likely to cover the anthropology of war, the
“culture of war”, the military everyday life, the human drama in the war, and it is not so important who was on
which side and who won. The post-Soviet countries are still “clearing up” who won. Thus, entirely new
commemorative traditions are being invented before our eyes). It is obvious that Russia continues to selfidentify with the Russian Empire and is building a historical narrative, which “binds together historical epochs”.
The new narrative rehabilitates the Romanov monarchy and in particular the policy of the last tsar, Nicholas II.
That is why the First World War is being integrated in the pantheon of “Patriotic” (“Otechestvennye”) wars of
1812 and 1941–1945. Ukrainian historical narrative is based on the fact that it was a fratricidal war because the
Ukrainians from the Russian Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire killed each other. The interesting detail is
that independent Ukraine started to make heroes from the soldiers who fought for Austro-Hungary against
Russia (the Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen).
It is important to emphasize that politicians of both countries base the actions on the presumed fact that modern
Russia and Ukraine, as well as modern Russians and Ukrainians already existed a hundred years ago, which is
not the case. Thus, modern borders and identities are being moved into the past. But is it correct to assume that
the soldiers who were drafted from the territories, which are now in Ukraine, considered themselves Ukrainians
then? The same applies to the Russians. The same anachronism appears also when we talk about the battles and
fights on the territory of Ukraine. What did Presidents Viktor Yushchenko and Petro Poroshenko mean when
they mention Ukrainian borders? Obviously, the presidents use the contemporary representations of the borders,
since they had not been formed during the years of the war.
Thus, the First World War is being gradually incorporated into the national memorial space of Russia and
Ukraine. At the same time the outbreak of hostilities in the East of Ukraine significantly exacerbates the
perception of the events, which took place one hundred years ago during the war. They acquired new meanings
and interpretations to become subjects of future papers and articles.