The current situation in Russia made me think of how the government creates invented traditions depending on changes in the political mood. Over the past decade, the Russian government has reimagined one of the country's most significant holidays – Victory Day, celebrated on May 9th to commemorate the end of the Great Patriotic War.
From a national perspective, this was the only war that mattered during the 1940s, although the rest of the world refers to it as World War II. The fact that the government refuses to call it World War II and explicitly focuses on the period from 1941 (the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR) to 1945 is a powerful tool for fostering a sense of imagined community, excluding the role of the USSR from the narrative of the common victory with other countries.
Victory Day itself, initially intended to honor those who fought for the USSR’s freedom, has become an example of what historian Eric Hobsbawm calls invented traditions: "a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behavior by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past." (Hobsbawm, 1983). The state has transformed this day into a grand military spectacle. By ritualistically repeating these military parades, mass celebrations, and media spectacles, the government creates a sense of continuity with the Soviet past, using the event to cultivate national pride, loyalty, and unity. However, the repetition of these performances, while implying continuity, disguises the fact that these traditions have been reshaped for present political purposes.
