Visualization of the victory: the practice of designing and representing the historical memory of the great patriotic war in modern Russian school

For the Russian Federation, the Great Patriotic War is a crucial event in the national history that has a tremendous impact on the common civil identity. The article is devoted to school visual commemorative practices dedicated to the Victory Day. The aims of the study are to identify the main discourses that form a school version of the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War, analyze the social mechanisms and the historical context of these discourses, determine the social consequences of their influence on the historical memory of school students and their social identity. The article is based on the results of a sociological analysis of visual materials used to design schools for the Victory Day (wall newspaper, posters, etc.). It can be argued that the visual design of schools forms the image of war where the “discourse of the parade” (triumph, celebration of heroes) dominates the “discourse of grief” (suffering, memory of victims, human tragedy). The main merit in the victory over the enemy belongs to the depersonalized state, and the events of the war years are likened to the “action”. The results of the research testify to internal contradictions of school commemorative practices. On the one hand, teachers appeal to the memory of fathers and grandfathers of modern school students in order to contribute positively to education. On the other hand, a school version of war glorification suppresses and simplifies the historical memories of families.