My article examines nation-building and memory politics in Transnistria since 1991 and asks how a de facto state without international recognition – and without a clear titular nation – constructs and stabilises a collective identity. In contrast to most post-Soviet successor states, Transnistria does not derive its legitimacy from a dominant ethnic group, but from a deliberately constructed historical and ideological narrative that combines Soviet, imperial Russian and local elements. On the basis of political speeches, legal texts, school and media discourses, symbolic practices and existing scholarship, the article reconstructs key stages of the separation from the Moldavian SSR / Republic of Moldova and shows that the conflict was driven less by a bottom-up ethnic mobilisation than by conservative industrial and party elites seeking to preserve their late-Soviet status. Analytically, the article focuses on three central nation-building strategies: first, the intensive re-use and adaptation of Tsarist and Soviet legacies, which are reinterpreted within the framework of the contemporary Russkij Mir concept; second, the claim to preserve an “authentic” Moldovan identity, including the defence of the Cyrillic “Moldovan language” against “Romanian nationalism”; and third, the gradual articulation of an allegedly over-ethnic “Transnistrian people” that comprises Russians, Moldovans and Ukrainians but is de facto strongly Russified. The study shows how monuments, state holidays, flags, emblems, educational content and public rhetoric fuse these strands into an eclectic but remarkably coherent memory regime. The article argues that Transnistria’s nation-building is best understood as “nationbuilding without nation”: a state project that relies on the permanent reproduction of a besieged-fortress narrative, on selective economic stability and on the everyday normalisation of de facto statehood, while simultaneously marginalising Moldovan, Romanian and Ukrainian national projects. Situated within broader debates on post-Soviet nation-building, unrecognised states and Russian neo-imperial ideology, the article demonstrates how Transnistria’s leadership instrumentalises history to justify continued separation from Moldova and to align the region symbolically and geopolitically with Russia. At the same time, the analysis underscores the flexibility of Transnistrian memory politics, which can react to shifts in Chişinău, Moscow and Kyiv, but whose basic orientation towards a russo-centric “Transnistrian” identity anchored in the Russkij Mir remains remarkably stable.

In periods of political transformation, monuments often function as anchors of certainty—yet they are simultaneously sites where uncertainty is negotiated, contested, and embodied. This paper examines how monumental spaces in Latvia have been instrumentalized across successive regime shifts to stabilize, reinterpret, or neutralize competing narratives of the past. Focusing on two central case studies—the Freedom Monument and the former Victory Monument in Riga—it explores how monuments operate as material dispositifs through which political actors manage uncertainty in moments of regime change. Drawing on memory studies and cultural analysis, the paper conceptualizes monuments as living lieux de mémoire whose meanings are neither fixed nor inherent, but continuously reshaped through commemorative practices, affective investments, and power relations. Special attention is paid to the vertical, obelisk-like—often phallic—form of these monuments, understood as a symbolic technology of authority, visibility, and permanence. Such forms lend themselves particularly well to political reuse, enabling regimes to project stability, dominance, and historical legitimacy precisely when political orders are fragile. Empirically, the paper traces how both monuments have been repeatedly reframed across interwar independence, Soviet occupation, Nazi rule, late socialism, and the post-1991 Latvian nation-state. While state actors have sought to impose official narratives through rituals, parades, bans, or demolitions, civic actors and local communities have simultaneously mobilized these sites from below—through protest, alternative commemorations, and symbolic interventions. These interactions reveal monuments as arenas where top-down and bottom-up memory practices intersect and collide. Central to this analysis is the role of nostalgia and affective memory. Rather than treating nostalgia as a private or purely regressive sentiment, the paper approaches it as a collective and political resource. Nostalgic references selectively activate, transform, or suppress historical layers, helping to stabilize certain interpretations of the past while rendering others uncertain or illegitimate. In this sense, nostalgia becomes a key mechanism through which uncertainty is managed. Finally, the paper situates Latvia as a laboratory of memory politics, where narratives of liberation and occupation remain in flux. Recent developments—such as monument dismantling, restrictions on commemoration, and the conversion of former memorial sites into leisure spaces—signal a shift from sacralization toward spectacle and staged forgetting. Rather than resolving uncertainty, monuments materialize it, embodying ongoing struggles over how the past is remembered, instrumentalized, or strategically forgotten.

In periods of political transformation, monuments often function as anchors of certainty—yet they are simultaneously sites where uncertainty is negotiated, contested, and embodied. This paper examines how monumental spaces in Latvia have been instrumentalized across successive regime shifts to stabilize, reinterpret, or neutralize competing narratives of the past. Focusing on two central case studies—the Freedom Monument and the former Victory Monument in Riga—it explores how monuments operate as material dispositifs through which political actors manage uncertainty in moments of regime change. Drawing on memory studies and cultural analysis, the paper conceptualizes monuments as living lieux de mémoire whose meanings are neither fixed nor inherent, but continuously reshaped through commemorative practices, affective investments, and power relations. Special attention is paid to the vertical, obelisk-like—often phallic—form of these monuments, understood as a symbolic technology of authority, visibility, and permanence. Such forms lend themselves particularly well to political reuse, enabling regimes to project stability, dominance, and historical legitimacy precisely when political orders are fragile. Empirically, the paper traces how both monuments have been repeatedly reframed across interwar independence, Soviet occupation, Nazi rule, late socialism, and the post-1991 Latvian nation-state. While state actors have sought to impose official narratives through rituals, parades, bans, or demolitions, civic actors and local communities have simultaneously mobilized these sites from below—through protest, alternative commemorations, and symbolic interventions. These interactions reveal monuments as arenas where top-down and bottom-up memory practices intersect and collide. Central to this analysis is the role of nostalgia and affective memory. Rather than treating nostalgia as a private or purely regressive sentiment, the paper approaches it as a collective and political resource. Nostalgic references selectively activate, transform, or suppress historical layers, helping to stabilize certain interpretations of the past while rendering others uncertain or illegitimate. In this sense, nostalgia becomes a key mechanism through which uncertainty is managed. Finally, the paper situates Latvia as a laboratory of memory politics, where narratives of liberation and occupation remain in flux. Recent developments—such as monument dismantling, restrictions on commemoration, and the conversion of former memorial sites into leisure spaces—signal a shift from sacralization toward spectacle and staged forgetting. Rather than resolving uncertainty, monuments materialize it, embodying ongoing struggles over how the past is remembered, instrumentalized, or strategically forgotten.

After the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, monuments commemorating the Red Army, constructed after the Second World War, have remained focal points in local, national, and transnational debates about memory, identity, and historical responsibility. Decisions to remove, preserve, or reinterpret these monuments reveal how communities negotiate the legacies of the war, the meaning of post-communist transformation, and their visions of the future. Contests over these sites are frequently instrumentalised in domestic political struggles and international relations, particularly in discourses surrounding internal and external security and geopolitics in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine. This paper investigates the trajectories of Red Army monuments in Poland after 1989, with particular attention to developments following the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the introduction of the 2016 de-communisation law. Whereas previous scholarship on Soviet monuments has largely centred on national narratives and case studies from capital cities, this paper shifts the focus to the periphery. It analyses how local communities confront the material remnants of the Second World War and the communist dictatorship, and how they actively shape historical narratives. By examining the mnemonic strategies and discursive interventions deployed at the local level, the paper sheds light on the multiscale history of commemoration and de-commemoration. It explores how global and regional developments (ranging from shifts in Polish–Russian relations to the broader securitisation of memory in Eastern Europe) interact with local concerns and identities. In doing so, the paper demonstrates the complex interplay between local agency and transnational forces in the ongoing renegotiation of the memory of the Second World War in post-communist Poland.

The full-scale Russian invasion has constituted a major test for the Ukrainian state, society, and national identity. At the same time, it has created specific conditions for the development of Ukrainian identity, which has increasingly been shaped in explicit opposition to the still highly relevant Russian civilizational influence. The war has significantly accelerated processes that have been ongoing since 2014, such as derussification, decolonization, and desovietization of public space. Especially in the early phase of the invasion, these policies corresponded closely to public demand. However, this represents only one dimension of the broader struggle to shape a new Ukrainian identity. Simultaneously, Ukraine faces challenges related to a memory conflict with Poland concerning the role of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the Second World War and the commemoration of its members. During the war, Ukraine has adopted a number of measures focused on memory politics. These include legislative acts (such as the Law on the Principles of Memory Politics of the Ukrainian Nation and the Law on the Commemoration of the Forced Displacement of Ukrainians after the Second World War), the establishment of commissions (e.g. the Kyiv Toponymic Commission), as well as the renaming of cities, towns, and streets. The aim of this presentation is to identify the ideological, political, and social conditions shaping Ukrainian memory politics and to assess how these factors have influenced its development. The paper seeks to verify the thesis that at the initial stage of the full-scale war there was no coherent concept of memory politics and no comprehensive institutional framework for its implementation. This situation began to change during the course of the invasion, as memory politics became part of nationwide derussification efforts and an element of the ongoing memory conflict with Poland. Nevertheless, Ukrainian memory politics still lacks a clearly defined direction, and the emerging framework appears to be an attempt to address this gap. The presentation will analyze the institutions and laws adopted in Ukraine during the war and examine how political circumstances influenced both their adoption and their content. Although the topic of Ukrainian memory politics during the ongoing war has so far received limited scholarly attention—understandably, given the continuing nature of the conflict—it is nevertheless possible to draw on existing research. In particular, works by Georgiy Kasianov, Ira Wells, Oleksii Lionchuk, Anastasiia Vorobiova, and Andrii Nekoliak engage with aspects of this issue and will be taken into account in this presentation.