Memory institutions implicitly rely on duration: they spend decades building their collections and preserving materials that will later become the basis for exhibitions and events. They conduct research on the past and plan for future events. At the same time, the emergency events easily challenge such linearity and question both operational practices and the content of the narratives that such institutions produce. As memory scholar Sebastian Graf (2025) shows, (virtual war) museums rely on various visions of futures and/or non-futures; therefore, heritage institutions engage in shaping collective timelines. Anthropologist Diana Vonnak (2023) speaks about the “dilemmas of risk and responsibility” of museums in Ukraine after the 2022 Russian full-scale invasion. We are extending these dilemmas to other heritage institutions that have to navigate a new, threatening environment. Based on the number of examples discussed from various academic traditions – from sociology to cultural history and Jewish studies, this panel aims to provide an overview of how straightforward political and existential threats reshape narratives and timelines of memory institutions and how these institutions gain agency to implement their vision of society’s recent and distant pasts for the sake of an imagined better future. The presentations show the connection between museums, oral history archives, and different communities, both local and global. They also address tensions connected to politicization and polarization, but also show how memory institutions can promote dialogue and foster democratic developments even during the war. Furthermore, the papers give insights into international cooperation in creating and managing heritage institutions. With the focus on Ukraine, they speak about experiences and memories of various social and ethnic groups. They cover a timeline of the last decade with the main focus on the developments during the last four years; therefore, the Russian war against Ukraine provides a context for reflection.
Natalia Otrishchenko, Center for Urban History of East Central Europe, “Oral history archive in threatened present: Connecting past to multiple futures” Recording oral histories during wartime is a leap of faith. It is creating a space for remembering the past in a threatened present when the future is radically unknown. Drawing on the experience of an international project documenting the stories of Ukrainians forcefully displaced by the Russian invasion of 2022 (“24/02/22, 5 am: Testimonies from the War”), Natalia will discuss the challenges of creating an archive of interviews about the ongoing war. She will trace how such an archive problematizes the usual temporalities in working with oral histories, when there is no “safe distance” between researcher, witness, and the event in focus. The informed consent, which determines the boundaries of archiving and disclosing materials, cannot be fully informed, as it must be oriented towards multiple futures. As the documentation project involved two waves of interviews with the same cohort, Natalia can compare informed consents from 2022 and 2024 and indicate how people’s attitudes towards preserving their stories changed during the protracted uncertainty. She argues that the oral history archive focused on the contemporary event, especially the one connected with mass violence, must be a space of constant negotiations with the slow pace of memory co-production despite the requirements of acceleration. Also, during the second round of interviews, project participants reflected on how they imagine archiving and using their testimonies, and Natalia will explore the shapes of this imagination. Ultimately, this talk will contribute to the conversation about how oral history archives can restore trust in the humanities in a world increasingly questioning it. Her research also builds on discussions within the LivArch network, coordinated by the Herder Institute. Keywords: Archive, Future, Informed consent, Oral history, War.
Jeff Stepnisky, MacEwan University, “Civic Memory and Ukraine’s Maidan Museum”
In this paper, I present research on the process of memory construction at the Maidan Museum in Kyiv, Ukraine. Consistent with the themes of the 2025 memory studies conference, my presentation focuses on the relationship between memory and civil society, as described in narratives about the work and activity of the Museum. The Maidan Museum was formed in the wake of Ukraine’s 2013-14 Revolution of Dignity. Its purpose is to commemorate the events of the Revolution, but also to connect the revolution, and by extension Ukrainian resistance to the ongoing Russian invasion, to the broader theme of the historical Ukrainian fight for freedom. I rely on the work of cultural sociologist Jeffrey Alexander, who argues that the civil sphere is constructed through symbolic structures that are created and enacted in everyday life. From this perspective, I treat the museum as an institution that, over time, has contributed to the development of a symbolic structure that reflects Ukrainian understanding (or at least one Ukrainian understanding) of civil society and its significance in the contemporary moment. To do this, I analyze descriptions of the work of the museum included in both the popular Ukrainian press and the Museum’s accounts of its own work, activities, and values. I describe the symbolic structure of this Ukrainian civil sphere and consider how it has been actualized in the work of the Museum. I also consider changes, dynamics, and contradictions within this symbolic structure, including how civic values potentially conflict with demands of memory posed, for example, by processes of mourning and loss demanded by the symbolic order of the religious sphere.
Keywords: Civil society, Cultural Sociology, Symbolic Structure, Maidan, Museum.
20260730T154520260730T1715America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires7.11. Navigating various narratives and timelines: Memory institutions during the warA111MSA Buenos Aires 2026buenosairesconference@memorystudiesassociation.org
Contested Memories: Russian and Ukrainian Cinema as a Site of Struggle over Memory and Identity (1991–2025)
Individual paperMemory Politics and Policies03:45 PM - 05:15 PM (America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires) 2026/07/30 18:45:00 UTC - 2026/07/30 20:15:00 UTC
The collapse of the Soviet Union did not eliminate the consciousness of the Soviet man, shaped over decades by propaganda, social engineering, and totalitarian control. This mentality persisted in the former Soviet republics, evolving under economic crises, political instability, and nostalgia into post-Homo Sovieticus—a consciousness both nostalgic and susceptible to revisionist narratives. Cinema has emerged as a central medium for articulating these memories and shaping post-Soviet identities. This article examines how Russian and Ukrainian films construct competing narratives of the Soviet past, focusing on two periods: 1991–2014 and 2014–2025. Russian cinema, particularly commercially successful productions, portrays the communist past, Russia’s historical role, and Ukraine’s place in ways that reinforce stereotypes, post-imperial hierarchies, and myths of a shared past. After 2014, these narratives intensified, glorifying the USSR, undermining Ukrainian sovereignty, and framing World War II as heroic sacrifice for the state’s greatness. Ukrainian cinema, initially influenced by Russian models, lacked a coherent memory strategy between 1991 and 2014, and independent productions were marginal, aimed at narrow audiences. The 2014 Russian aggression catalyzed a transformation: Ukrainian films began countering stereotypes, valorizing national history, and integrating pro-European perspectives. These productions represent memory activism, using cinema to reconstruct national identity and foster a European, democratic orientation. The study employs semiotic, narrative, and discursive visual analysis, focusing on representations of identity, trauma, and stereotypes. Findings show that Russian cinema perpetuates nostalgia and revisionist myths, whereas Ukrainian films actively redefine collective identity and civic agency, offering a counter-narrative to Russian hegemonic discourse. By comparing these cinematic approaches, the article demonstrates how post-Soviet memory and identity are contested through visual culture, highlighting cinema’s role as a key instrument of memory politics in shaping both national and transnational identities.
Olexandra Zvyagina Assistant Professor, Centre For Migration Research, University Of Warsaw
Between memory making and everyday geopolitics: Tourism in the Ukraine-EU borderlands under the full-scale war with Russia
Individual paperArchives, Heritage Institutions, Museums00:00 Midnight - 00:00 Midnight (America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires) 2026/07/30 03:00:00 UTC - 2026/07/30 03:00:00 UTC
After 1991, Lviv, Chernivtsi and Uzhhorod, Ukrainian cities at the country’s western border, saw an exponential rise of international and domestic tourism. The multicultural heritage of the former imperial Habsburg provinces, which became parts of interwar Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania and after WWII were integrated into the Soviet Ukraine, was rediscovered as a valuable touristic asset. In the region affected by the re-drawing of borders, forced mass displacements and the Holocaust, the rise of nostalgic tourism contributed to a positive re-evaluation of some local historical sites as part of the national heritage while sparking controversies about others. The development of local tourism as a strategy to overcome past hostilities was supported by cross-border cooperation projects funded by the EU. The Covid pandemic put these developments on hold, but the real game-changer was the full-scale Russian invasion. Military conflict, mass displacement and martial law hit the tourism sector hard. And yet, western Ukraine is considered relatively safe, and the growing number of international events attract numerous foreign visitors. Displaced persons from the country’s east and south became “tourists despite themselves” by discovering the local cultural heritage and exploring Ukraine’s western neighborhood. While the rise of right-wing populism complicates Kyiv’s relations with Warsaw, Budapest and Bratislava, on the local level municipalities, tourist companies and guides have been actively engaged in everyday memory diplomacy. Inspired by recent publications on post-Soviet tourism as memory making and everyday geopolitics (e.g. Pfoser 2025, Yusupova 2025), this paper deals with the case of (western) Ukraine under the full-scale war with Russia and is based on interviews with representatives of the tourist sector, municipal authorities and NGOs dealing with local cultural heritage.
