Russia and World War I: The Politics of Memory and Historiography, 1914–2018

The memory of World War I is one of the most dynamic fields in the study of “cultural memory.” Daniel T. Orlovsky was the first to develop this theme as applied to Russia.¹ In Russia this war is often called the “forgotten war.”² The revolution and the civil war, and then World War II (the 1941–45 war was called the Great Patriotic War in the USSR), overshadowed the memory of the events of 1914–16. The memory of World War I was suppressed; many names and events were made taboo. Military cemeteries were destroyed, monuments were dismantled, and many