Politics of War Commemoration in the UK and Russia

This book analyses contemporary war commemoration in Britain and Russia. Focusing on the political aspects of remembrance, it explores the instrumentalisation of memory for managing civil-military relations and garnering public support for conflicts. It explains the nexus between remembrance, militarisation and nationalism in modern societies.

“This is a worthwhile and interesting book … . there is however much of interest for the reader, especially in the sections dealing with contemporary war commemoration in Russia.” (Steven J. Main, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 69 (2), March, 2017)“Danilova’s book is extremely well researched and her careful analysis is sensitive to the many particularities of both societies. … a timely book that demonstrates the ways in which modern states use the commemoration of the war dead to promote and support messy, ambiguous, and conflict-ridden military campaigns. … Danilova’s outstanding work allows us to see the building blocks of military ideology at work as they are arranged and rearranged by states and social forces to build (or destroy) consensus.” (Karen Petrone, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, Vol. 1 (2), 2016)

Nataliya Danilova is Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen. She publishes in civil-military relations, political history of the Soviet Afghan War, international politics, and memory studies. Her first monograph, Armiia i Obshchestvo: Printsypy Vzaimodeistviia (2007), discusses civil-military interactions in the EU and Russia.