The politics of collective memory and intergenerational transmission: Victory Day in Ural Newspaper coverage

Abstract The significance and symbolism of the Great Patriotic War and Victory Day has grown in its political and social importance in terms of the communication of collective memory in the inter-generational transmission of norms and values by mass media. Victory Day is the iconic moment that has come to symbolise and concentrate the desirable values and traits required of “good” citizens to meet the contemporary challenges of domestic politics and international relations. This article uses Framing Analysis of 21 articles from five local and regional newspapers’ coverage of Victory Day in 2021 in the Sverdlovsk Oblast during the Coronavirus pandemic. The indicative findings of the study hint at the role of local and regional media in shaping the collective memory of readers to further align the contemporary individual narrative with the collective narrative of this communicated memory. There are a clear set of historical values and behaviour related to a sense of group belonging and collective purpose that are taken from the communicated memory of the Great Patriotic War through Victory Day celebrations and applied to the Coronavirus crisis.


Introduction
Russia has undergone a series of rapid and all-encompassing social, political and economic transformations in the 20 th century, which has affected its identity and national character (Gevorkyan et al., 2000).These changes continue to evolve in the 21 st century, keeping in mind lessons of past such as wars and the trauma of the break-up of the Soviet Union.Recalling these unstable historical periods for the different generations can be a highly complex, subjective and ABOUT THE AUTHOR Greg Simons has a PhD from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, formerly a researcher at the Humanitarian Institute at Ural Federal University in Russia, currently he is a lecturer at the Department of Communication Science at Turiba University in Riga, Latvia.His research interests include: changing political dynamics and relationships, mass media, public diplomacy, political marketing, crisis management communications, media and armed conflict, and the Russian Orthodox Church.He also researches the relationships and connections between information, politics and armed conflict more broadly, such as the GWOT and Arab Spring.emotional process, especially if the historical moment constitutes an iconic event.Leavy (2007, p. 187) observes that "iconic events have become a vehicle through which 'nation' is articulated, and so too are these events critical to the renegotiation of that identity, at times via purposeful political challenge, or resistance within popular culture."The Great Patriotic War (1941-45) is one such iconic event during this period, and where Victory Day (9 May 1945) is the ultimate moment of that event.
Lessons have been drawn from the Great Patriotic War in terms of approaches to social, political and international relations (Abramova et al., 2021;Aziasskii & Shchipkov, 1998).Public rituals and interpretations of the meaning and significance of the Great Patriotic War in the official discourse have evolved over time.During the period 2005-2011, a significant mnemonic shift was noted.There was a transformation from a "playful retrofitting" of history in the late 1990s that displayed aesthetics of non-involvement to overt attempts to "envision history as an assemblage of emotionally charged objects" (Oushakine, 2013, pp. 301-302).This paper seeks to analyse the regional newspapers of the Ural region in Russia, and their coverage of the Victory Day celebrations in 2021 (from 8 to 10 May) and in particular the intergenerational transmission of collective memory.This is taken from the perspective of the role of local and regional media as agents of securitisation of a health crisis (COVID-19) through attempting to invoke the norms and values derived from collective memory.
Seemingly, as social and political fragmentation of a group (Russian citizens) increases, the sources of political and social legitimacy need to be renewed by invoking emotionally constructed associations and connections with the past.The interpretation and representation of historical memory is pertinent, especially as people with direct experience of the selected iconic historical moment are dwindling and yet the memory is still potentially useable to shape the perceptions, values and actions of members of the group.Two research questions are posed.What do the specific and schematic narratives of the newspapers' coverage of Victory Day emphasize most?Are these identified narratives connected to any attempt to project specific values and identities linked to the communicated collective memory in reliving and re-enacting this iconic day?
This article consists of six sections, the first section engages in the theoretical and conceptual academic literature on the nature and significance of collective memory and how it is transmitted between the generations.In the second section, the nature on how Russia's collective memory of the Great Patriotic War is publicly communicated is the focus.Method and approach used in this article is explained and motivated in the third section.The fourth section is divided into two subsections, which present the case study's empirical material consisting of newspaper reportage of the Great Patriotic War on the anniversary of Victory Day (9 May).The first subsection informs the reader of the newspapers from the Ural Region that were selected, and the second subsection presents and analyses the content of the articles collected.A discussion and contextualisation of the results within the existing state of the art literature appears in the fifth section, and the final section covers some proposed future research before moving to the conclusion to answer the hypothesis and research questions.

Forming and communicating memory
Throughout the historical experiences of cultures and groups is the idea of an iconic event to rally social or political cohesion through the communication of its memory.Leavy (2007, p. 4) defines an iconic event in the following manner: "an event that undergoes intense initial interpretive practices but also becomes mythic within the culture through its appropriation into other political or social discourses."These events are hyper-represented and an integral part of the contemporary political agenda in each collective society.Collective memory is defined by Schudson (1992, p. 3) as "social memory, referring to the ways in which group, institutional, and cultural recollection of the past shape people's actions in the present."However, even if memories are communicated and shared it does not mean that there is consensus on the qualitative interpretation of them.Assmann (2011, p. 15) remarked that "the past exists, if it can be said to exist at all, in a double form: as a sedimentation of relics, traces, and personal memories and as a social construction."Memory and representations of the past are a very complicated and interactive process of shaping and reshaping."The present is 'haunted' by the past and the past is modelled, invented, reinvented, and reconstructed by the present" (Assmann, 1997, p. 9).Halbwachs (1980) stated that remembering is influenced by individuals' participation in collective life of a community, where different groups create varying accounts of the past.Wertsch (2008b, p. 133) identifies two levels of analysis of narrative organisation: specific narratives and schematic narrative templates.Where specific narratives are uniquely situated in a specific time and space.Whereas schematic narrative templates are more concerned with identifying generalizable patterns rather than a focus on specific and concrete actors and events.
History is at the core of collective memory, not "as it really was" but as an idealised history that creates an "imagined", mythologized, national history, seemingly rising above class or other sectional interests.If an imagined, national history is at the core of collective memory, then war, especially victorious war, is its most powerful symbolic weapon.Death, blood sacrifice, and nation are the holy trinity of an unassailable, sacralised, collective memory; to challenge it is to blaspheme.(Markwick, 2012, p. 2) As Markwick notes in the above quoted text, memory is something that is social and political at the same time, it is subjectively shaped in the information realm to influence the cognitive realm.

The political use of memory
Some academic observers have not overlooked the vagueness in the very nature of the definition and application of theory and concepts.Vagueness is something that can be operationally exploited as it is open to interpretation by audiences and in this respect can be more "inclusive" and appealing.
In short, we are still looking for satisfactory ways of understanding the social dimension of memory, and as long as we continue to look, "collective memory" is not likely to go out of fashion.[. . .]We keep coming back to it because we can make it mean what we want it to mean -and because it remains a catchy phrase, resonant with a certain mystery, magic, even aura.(Niven, 2008, p. 436) Therefore, the writing, researching and communicating of memory in relation to historical events, concerns much more than strictly a retelling of the past.Tamm (2013, p. 466) concludes that generally "memory studies can be regarded as part of a broader change in how we see time and the interrelations of the past, the present, and the future."History, symbolism and collective memory interact with the influence of culture in its communication, especially within the context of trauma."Collective trauma in particular shows the symbolic, emotional and moral dimensions of memory as a cultural phenomenon, the temporality of which is not limited to the past in the present, but also encompasses the future" (Halas, 2010, p. 320).Culture forms the glue that holds other aspects together.
Cultural memory is used as a means of aligning the three poles of memory (the contemporized past), culture, and the specific group (society) (Assmann & Czaplicka, 1995, p. 129).Therefore, it can function as a means of concretising identity, possesses a capacity to reconstruct, the formation of knowledge, image and identity, the organisation of text and learning, the creation of individual obligations to the group .This implies some attempt and measure at the creation of uniformity in the collective memory of historical events.Reading (2011, p. 380) argues for the "right to memory" through "an acknowledgement of the otherness of the past made present and future through various symbolic and cultural acts, gestures, utterances and expressions."This needs to be managed simultaneously as the rapidly changing cultural and media environment creates new meanings and interpretations.
It is noted that "collective memory and attention are sustained by two channels: oral communication (communicative memory) and the physical recording of information (cultural memory)" (Candia et al., 2019, p. 82).It is noted further by the same authors that collective memory initially decays rapidly and then gradually more slowly, where the literature states communicative memory is more short-lived than cultural memory (Ibid.).Decay is not the only threat to group memory.Assmann (2010) highlighted the role and effect of the erosion of cultural memory owing to the role of globalisation and universalism in removing or weakening the political and cultural boundaries of various groups.
The construction of a shared past is one of the means used to integrate people into their respective constructed communities.This can include the navigating of conflicting historical narratives to create a usable past.The issue of negotiating memory through reshaping, rearranging and reasoning them to align personal narratives to the national ones (Nugin, 2021).Memory transmission is a mutually interactive process along two temporal planes-vertically through time and horizontally in time.
The transmission of memory is not a straightforward transfer of experiential cargo from one generation to another or between contemporaries; it is the process through which the pasts of others are heard.In hearing these pasts with sympathy and empathy, we may hope to integrate them into our own mnemonic narratives without compromising the integrity of their experience or our own in the process.(Pickering & Keightley, 2012, p. 128) As noted above, the process of intergenerational transmission of collective memory is a very complex act, which is considered a necessary one to integrate the following generation into the group (society) into which they are born and to be cognitively integrated.Studies of intergenerational transmission in selected groups have discovered that value transmission is selective, and across cultures collectivism values were transmitted, but not individualism (Lochner, 2008;Phalet & Schönpflug, 2001;Schönpflug, 2001).The above can be utilised as the basis for creating national myths.O'Shaughnessy (2004, pp. 101-102) notes that myths, across time and space, possess a number of commonalities: 1) they are flexible as they can be created, refreshed or resurrected by "myth entrepreneurs"; 2) ritual homage to myths is needed if political persuasion stands a chance to succeed; 3) myths are a key component for social cohesion, social division can arise with the collapse of a myth.Those myths that are propagated are embedded with notions of various desirable and undesirable value traits, which are then communicated through mass communicated frames.An annual marking of the collective memory of Russia, and its intergenerational transmission is the anniversary of Victory Day (9 May) as the finale of the Great Patriotic War.

Creating emotionally-based associations and belongings
Power or at least the quest for power is a potentially influential factor that shapes memory and its remembrance in society.This is particularly so in the remembering of traumatic occurrences in the history of the group, which can become a core constituent of the culture and identity of the group that is remembering.A critical approach can be used to reveal the power relations that are the foundation in the process of remembering, which is the intersection of self, other and the object of memory.This makes the socio-cultural context of where the remembering occurs crucial to understand, requiring an open and critical approach (Obradović, 2017)."Processes of remembering are thus not mere retrievals of existing information, but a negotiation, construction and at times, manipulation, of what is assumed to have occurred in the past" (Obradović, 2017, p. 208).The operationally oriented conceptualisation of collective memory, through its how and why is a social-cultural construction and its meaning and purpose is connected to hegemonic political imperatives that are in turn a construction of engineering power through influence.

Memory and opinion polls
Although there are arguments and reasons to question the absolute reliability of opinion polls results, especially in sensitive political issues, they do give an indication of trends in each society as well as which collective memories are considered important to remember and relive.In 2003, 87 per cent of respondents named the Great Patriotic War as the proudest moment in Russian history (in 1993 98 per cent named victory in the Great Patriotic War as the greatest moment in the 20 th century) (Markwick, 2012, p. 18).By 2017, a Levada Centre poll found 83 per cent of respondents found the Great Patriotic War as a moment in history that made them feel proud. 1 In 2020 (75 th anniversary), in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, 95 per cent of respondents in a WCIOM poll agreed that the Great Patriotic War was the most important event of the 20 th century, 69 per cent as the most important moment in Russia's history, and 73 per cent argued its lessons should be used for the patriotic upbringing of youth. 2 88 per cent of respondents in a 2021 poll claimed to have had relatives fighting in the Great Patriotic War, an important aspect to keep alive the family historical memory, contemporary Victory Day celebrations are one of the most popular public holidays in Russia with approximately one third of respondents taking part in the celebrations. 3Gives these snapshots of the importance and relevance of this iconic moment in Russian history, collective memory becomes potentially operationalizable government policy.
Early in his first term, President Vladimir Putin associated patriotism with a feeling of pride in one's country, its history, and achievements.He also remarked that "if we lose patriotism and the national pride and dignity that are connected with it, we will no longer be a nation capable of great achievements" (Gevorkyan et al., 2000, p. 214).The Great Patriotic War was an iconic event for the Russian people and the Russian state that traverses the entire spectrum of pathos from the tragedy and trauma of Operation Barbarossa (Nazi-led invasion of the Soviet Union) on 22 June 1941 to the triumph and patriotism of Victory Day on 9 May 1945.It is an event that calls for significant reflection and communication (Wertsch, 2008a), which is very much linked to the spirit of the words on patriotism mentioned by Putin from the year 2000.Etkind (2004, pp. 39-42) divides the physical expression of memory into distinct categories.Where soft memory consists primarily of textual accounts and depictions, and hard memory consists of monuments, laws, and court decisions.These are not exclusive but are rather interdependent and interacting tools for remembering.This present article concentrates on the soft memory variant.The contemporary use of re-enacted historical events is intended to provide the public with a sense of authentic connection with the depicted historical events at a point in time when there are fewer or no direct connections with the events of the Great Patriotic War (Oushakine, 2013).This connection is achieved through a narrative template, which shapes the interpretations of the members of the mnemonic community through its grounding (the extent and degree of actual grounding can be argued) in actual historical experience (Wertsch, 2008a, p. 144).

Categories of collective memory
Narratives are an important tool to help order and interpret historical memories in a specific manner that is provided by a sociocultural context of the modern state by serving as cultural tools for members of a given collective as they recall the past (Wertsch, 2008b).The Great Patriotic War is remembered and interpreted differently by actors as the symbolism of remembrance takes on an increasingly fragmented and politicised tone in Russia and beyond, over space and time (Marples, 2012).This creates a contested and interactive interaction between the information realm and cognitive realm in shaping and influencing the memory of the war.
Tumarkin noted that there was an increasing amount of symbolism being attached to the memorialisation of the Great Patriotic War in the early 21 st century."The memory of the real experience of the Great Patriotic War is fading as its survivors die off, but the myth of a war now considered the Soviet Union's finest achievement, will continue to be used to legitimate the history of the USSR, to bolster national pride, and to support the weakened and demoralised Russian army" (Tumarkin, 2003, p. 610).Mann (2020) has noted a recycling of the collective memory of the Great Patriotic War across time and various Soviet and Russian (except for Boris Yeltsin) administrations, where the memory was shaped and operationalised for the political priorities of the time.

Political utilisation of collective memory
Putin noted the need for patriotism to unify and motivate the people of Russia to be able to achieve great deeds as they did in their history, which makes the role of history and collective memory an important social policy component."Vladimir Putin's administration turned to the Second World War as a ready source of patriotism, emphasizing ideas familiar to much of the population that revolved around national unity, struggle, and perseverance" (Mann, 2020, p. 512).However, there has been in general a lack of consistent state memory between the Soviet and post-Soviet administrations in Russia, which has been accompanied by an increase in spontaneous grassroots activity, the need for an identity, and the political manipulation of historical memory (Kasyanov et al., 2019;Wood, 2011).There are noticeable differences in approach and intent by the varying Russian presidential administrations.Malinova (2017, p. 65) notes that within the environment of post-Soviet Russia, the Great Patriotic War has become the most politically viable and useable element of the historical past owing to its earlier uncontested positive meaning and institutionalisation.It was used as a means of gaining political capital and legitimacy by successive presidential administrations.She states that the first President, Boris Yeltsin, attempted to separate the memory from Soviet failures and the excesses of Stalin's rule that signalled a rupture of the identity of the new Russian state with the old Soviet Union.Whereas Presidents Putin and Medvedev accentuated the historical continuity of contemporary Russia with its predecessor states, where the double victimhood at the hands of the Nazi and Soviet regimes was replaced by the theme of mass heroism and hardship needed (sacrifice) for a great victory as a means of constructing a new Russian identity, national unity and creating intergenerational solidarity.Where the celebration and commemoration of the collective historical memory of the Great Patriotic War "is a ritual confirmation of suffering and redemption.It encapsulates core Russian values of empathy, subordination to the greater good, and unity in the face of adversity" (Wood, 2011, p. 198).However, the preservation or creation of the collective historical memory is far from being a matter of the state only.
The effects of history and collective memory resonate and touch different spheres of the Russian public's life.For example, the digital environment has become a mediator in cultural memory.Golovashina et al. (2017) observe a transformation of the communicative memory of the Great Patriotic War into cultural memory.However, there are significant contradictions and polarisation seen in the mass historical consciousness of contemporary Russians.Their research demonstrated the role and effects of interpretation and personalisation (at the family or social group level) of the memory of the Great Patriotic War, which in some cases diverged from the officially communicated narrative.
There are also generational differences noted in the way and means of memorialising this historical event as the gap between living collective memory and historical events widens, which was dependent upon political context, individual preferences, and the targeting of historical events by mass media."At the same time, young people are sensitive to the modes of content reintroduction, and the space of collective memory turns into the frontline in the battle for future identity" (Opletina & Kunyaeva, 2019, 2003).It is further observed, "the memory of the Great Patriotic War constitutes an important element for intergenerational translation of patriotism and civil position substantial meaning, and also important for the maintenance of balance in the society" (Opletina & Kunyaeva, 2019, 2006).There is a complex interaction and influence between the information realm and the cognitive realm (Abramova et al., 2021: 431) note that the subject of historical memory is directly related to the problem of cultural identification."A case study approach has been chosen for this article, using the Sverdlovsk Oblast to understand the politics of collective memory and intergenerational transmission of Victory Day by local newspapers.

Method
Memory studies in general concern the mechanisms and influences on what, how and why individuals, groups and societies remember or forget events, and collective memory relates to how this is passed from one generation to the next.The Sverdlovsk Oblast has been chosen as case study for indicative research.This region was chosen because it is a provincial and yet urbanised region of Russia to move away from studies of larger and more often studied western locations, such as Moscow or Saint Petersburg.Phenomenology has been referred to as being a philosophical movement, which indicates seminal ideas evolve and do not remain static owing to the work of subsequent scholars (Lopez & Willis, 2004, p. 728).The empirical data shall be interpreted via the use of phenomenology, which is described as taking "human existence as its vantage point and explores how human subjects exist and create meaning in their everyday lives in relation to basic categories such as time, space and sociocultural relevance" (Bengtsson & Johansson, 2020, p. 6).It is the intention of the author to use a qualitative approach to analysing the data to create an indicative study.A qualitative study approach has been selected as this is the best means of capturing the complexity of the objects of the study (Hyett et al., 2014, p. 2).The connection to this article is the mediated material is not only an interpreted representation of past life, but also serves as an example and guide to the present and future generations which values and attributes are required for a "successful" collective path of the country through the lessons of the national myth.
The definition of framing according to Entman (2004, p. 5) is the "selecting and highlighting some facets of events or issues and making connections among them so as to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation and/or solution."However, Nelson et al. (1997, p. 567) argue that "framing is the process by which a communication source, such as a news organisation, defines and constructs a political issue or public controversy".There are several functions that are performed by news frames that are covering political events, issues and actors by "defining effects or conditions as problematic; identifying causes; conveying a moral judgement; endorsing remedies or improvements" (Entman, 2004, p. 5).From this important basis people can learn much concerning politics from the subjective coverage in mass media, Bolsen (2011, p. 143) points out that there are major determinants that shape political news: world events, advocacy groups and the government.Frames can perform at least two of these functions, where the objects of the frames are political events, issues and actors.Entman (2004, p. 47) observes "the central goal of all the political manoeuvring over news frames is simply to generate support or opposition to a political actor or policy."Mass media outlets are in effect a social institution for either consistency or change in a given society by acting simultaneously as an instrument of circulating knowledge and ideas, but also in acting as a gatekeeper.
The following section contains the data analysed from the case study sample of newspaper coverage of Victory Day 2021 on Victory Day and one day either side (8-10 May).The results were found by using the search terms Victory Day (День Победы) in the search engine of the respective media outlets.The dates were selected because of the focus on re-enacting and reliving the experience and the embodied in the historical memory of the exact day, and not the wider and broader reflections and opinions that can come from a general discussion beyond the selected time frame.A total of 21 articles were selected from five newspapers (please see Table 1).The newspapers were selected based on their physical location and circulation.Details and specifics of the chosen media outlets appear further on in this article.
A limitation of this study is the research focus on the qualitative nature of organised persuasive communication employed by the observed media outlets in the Urals in communicating the memory and values of the Victory Day celebrations during the Coronavirus pandemic to their readership.Hence, trying to understand the nature and style of the discourse used, together with attempting to understand the desired effect.Therefore, although the qualitative method gains insights and context through understanding, it does not and cannot generate explanations and correlations and is more concerned with meanings rather than behaviour (Silverman, 2020, pp. 6-7).The paper does not take into account the audience reception of the materials published, therefore the possible/potential effects of the publications is not known and would be a worthy of a further study in its own right.There are other limitations on the intention of this article, which is not to analyse or discuss specific health policy of the Russian authorities or the effects on reactions and behaviour of the audiences to the media content analysed, but rather to investigate the apparent need for cognitive unity through the emotional recollection of the past when national unity was sought to confront another type of threat.As a result, an additional limitation is a lack of understanding the measure of effect on audiences of the empirical data collected.Furthermore, it is not the intention or desire to engage with the Ukraine War as this is an altogether different form of risk and threat than the Coronavirus.

Victory day coverage in the Urals
The Sverdlovsk Oblast (See Map 1 below) was chosen as the area for the case study to be conducted.This was for several reasons including: being an industrialised and urbanised region; moving away from Moscow-centric research; large enough region to support local mass media and journalism; presence of large and literate population to consume the informational products of local journalism.Therefore, this present article should be understood in terms of its purpose and intention as taking a very brief snapshot of a specific geographical place and point in time of an ongoing and evolving political and social trends and processes that are (attempting) to be influenced through the operationalisation and communication of historical memory across generations of Russians.It is therefore an indicative and not generalizable result.
Focus and attention shall be given to Schudson's (1992) understanding of collective memory as a social memory as a means by groups and institutions for the cultural recollection of the past to shape people's actions in the present.The collective memory being rooted in the past is found in two forms, a social construction and relics, traces and personal memories (Assmann, 2011).The process of mythmaking is an integral aspect of forging national identity through imagined and mythologized national history that transcends different interests and strata in society to bring unity of focus and purpose via public rituals, where challenging the myth becomes frowned upon  , 2004;Reading, 2011).Collective memory is generated and maintained through oral communication and the physical recording of information (Candia et al., 2019).In this case, the recording of the local Victory Day parades by local and regional newspapers in the Ural region.

Newspapers in the Ural Region
Recent research on content production of local and regional newspapers tends to suggest that journalists and media outlets tend to be either supporting the government communication narrative or are apolitical in nature (Erzikova & Lowrey, 2020).Far from being confined to Russia, the state constructed a threat to its citizens from an unseen and non-state actor, which does not discriminate.COVID-19 was characterised as being a national (and international) risk and threat that requires a political call for action.The political call spoke of the need for a collective identity and purpose as the basis for collective action to "combat" and "defeat" the virus threat.The Urals was chosen as it is a highly urbanised and industrialised (able to support local and regional media), which also makes it vulnerable to the spread of the virus.Possessing their own mass media outlets, the region can communicate the official (at regional and local level) message and political call to arms.The situation of time and place is also indicative of the wider official use of Victory Day to harness public opinion and their compliance with policy priorities, and where the state can present itself as a potential saviour of the threatened public.
Five local and regional newspapers were selected from each of the main urban centres (cities) of the Sverdlovsk Oblast.Newspapers were selected based upon their circulation size in each of the five cities.An overview of the newspapers' names, city of publication and the number of articles observed and evaluated is given in Table 1 at the end of this sub-section.A brief account of each of these newspapers is given below.
(1) Каменский рабочий (Kamensky Worker): The newspaper is a municipal socio-political publication that is currently published twice per week (1300 copies on Tuesdays and 10,000 copies on Thursdays). 4 The founder of the newspaper is the city administration.
Source:https://usrbc.org/rus sionmap/resources/croster. html?companyRosterId= 81&companyForm.instanceFilter.v[576719]=58 (2) Тагильский рабочий (Tagilsky Worker): In May 1931, the current name of the newspaper was adopted.The newspaper is published three times per week.On Wednesday and Thursday official city documents and decisions by the City Duma are published.The founder is the Municipal Autonomous Institution "Nizhny Tagil Information Company Tagil Press. 5 (3) Городские вести (City News): Is characterised as being a popular city media project, which produces online informational materials on a daily basis.The website was established in July 2009. 6The printed circulation is 20,000 copies. 7 (4) Глобус (Globus): is a weekly social-political newspaper published in the town of Serov.The pilot issue of the newspaper appeared in November 1998, and has a circulation of around 50, 000 copies. 8 (5) Областная газета (Oblast Newspaper): the social-political newspaper has a circulation of some 81,000 copies in 2019 that made it the most widely circulated regional newspaper in Russia.It is published five times per week. 9

Kamensky Rabochy coverage
Kamensky Rabochy's digital news coverage of the 2021 Victory Day events was the first of five mass media outlets to be investigated.It was not possible to find the direct website of the media outlet, but it is very active on social media where the archived news articles were found and analysed (Odnoklassniki, VK, Twitter, Facebook-see Table 1).Digital news material on the Victory Day celebration was sourced from the Facebook group.In a post (Terentev, 2021b) in a post titled "The Most Unusual Congratulations on Victory Day" the post discussed the social impact of the Coronavirus on the celebrations."The parade of the heirs of the Victory, the march of the Immortal Regiment and the fireworks were cancelled-too big events and too many people.But small, homely and cosy are possible.The artists of the Metallurg Palace of Culture came up with the following idea: if people cannot come to an event, then the event itself can come to people."One video greeting by the head of the town was also uploaded on the Facebook group, a video produced by the city's press service (Terentev, 2021a).A third post featured a montage of photos of celebrations of the event in the city before 2021 as the public celebrations were cancelled because of the Coronavirus, by Anastasia Lapteva (2021).She wrote in an emotional tone the lessons of history, which should not be forgotten in the present times of difficulty."Due to the epidemiological situation in the country, most of the traditional events for May 9 have been cancelled.Only the feeling of gratitude to our grandfathers and fathers, who defeated the enemy and raised the country from ruins, cannot be cancelled." Present-day hardships of the Coronavirus pandemic are emphasized, where individual "sacrifice" for the greater societal good is stressed, which is intended to echo with the Victory Day myths and rituals.The historical memory of the values and personal/collective traits of the people are brought to the fore as being necessary to keep the collective memory of a hard fought and won triumph over adversity.The collective memory of the past is used to shape the collective psychology of contemporary citizens as a means for them to overcome (physically and psychologically) contemporary problems and challenges.Ultimately, the power relations stressed in the media text are of a metaphorical symbolic sacrifice of the individual for the good of the greater community.Although the communicative and cultural aspects of the collective public rituals performed on Victory Day are not sacrificed but move from a mass public spectacle to an individual private reflection.It is about community unity in the face of commonly shared and experienced adversity.

Tagilsky Rabochy coverage
Tagilsky Rabochy's Victory Day coverage appeared only on the day of the celebration.One of the articles was a photo reportage, which was without any text, consisting of some photos of the events taking place in the city.The main participants in these photos were civilians and veterans marking the occasion (Victory Day is Celebrated in Nizhny Tagil, 2021).Another, mostly photo based, news report featured regional and city officials, administrators, representatives of local business enterprises and military personnel.It included coverage of the official laying of a wreath at the city's obelisk and eternal flame (Flower Laying, 2021).There was an exceptional and notable lack of text, which clearly separates the more detailed and interpretative reports appearing in the various digital media outlets below.The photos represent a physical recording of information of reenacted historical moments where cultural memory is the mechanism for emphasizing who (individuals) and what (institutions) is important in terms of values and ideals they represent and communicate in the ritualised and mythologised Victory Day for the local audience.

Gorodskiye Vesti coverage
There were only two articles appearing in the newspaper Gorodskiye Vesti, one on the 8 th of May and the other on the 9 th of May.On the eve of Victory Day, a local deputy of the State Duma congratulated the residents on the coming celebration.In his congratulatory article, several key narratives were stressed.
We have been living under a peaceful sky for 76 years now.But eternal memory makes "hearts beat in unison", stretches an invisible thread from generation to generation.We are proud of our grandfathers and fathers, we are proud of all the Urals who performed an unparalleled feat on the battlefields.We pay tribute to the memory of the soldiers who died in the battles, who died from wounds and undermined health.(Congratulations, 2021) The contribution of the Ural region was stressed, along with an attempt to unite purpose and unity among the different generations.A lengthy photo report on the military parades in Yekaterinburg, the various dignitaries present and the various types of personnel and equipment in the parade was the primary focus.The article began with the various medical measures in place owing to the Coronavirus pandemic (Semkov & Riders, 2021).The themes appearing in this digital publication are consistent with other outlets across the Sverdlovsk Oblast.The discourse of the material stressed the importance of unity and community when facing threats, then and now.There was also the discourse of pride in the achievements of individual ancestors that had endured hardship and "willingly" sacrificed for the greater good of a better future for the community.

Globus coverage
In the digital version of the newspaper Globus, five articles on the Victory Day celebrations (appearing 8-10 May 2021) were collected, although others appeared that were outside of this time frame.The subjects varied, but included practical matters, such as weather forecasts for Victory Day on the day before (Yaroshyuk, 2021).One of the themes before Victory Day celebrations was informing the public about the scheduled programme of events for the following day (Bobilev, 2021a).Attention is paid to the individualisation of official gratitude and recognition towards surviving veterans, together with outlining a cultural programme held in their honour.This is likely to indicate the level of importance assigned to the legacy and memory of veterans in contemporary Russian society, linking the past and present generations.The focus of the content seemed to be directed at enabling individual participation in the collective public events, the mythologised ritual of contemporary local official gratitude to the historical heroic deeds of the original historical generation for the public consumption across generations, facilitating the transmission of historical memory and desired values and norms.
Several different digital articles appeared on the day of the celebration.These articles covered the physical events as well as the emotional interpretation and greater significance of the historical event and its memory.An editorial featured an interactive community programme called "Window of Victory", where staff from the local Interior and Defence Ministries and their children mingled with veterans from the war front and the home front.The stories and anecdotes from veterans were illustrative of the needs, demands and sacrifices of common people united against a strong adversary (Editorial, 2021).By logic, such understandings of the past are valid and applicable in the current context, where different generations interact and learn, which is communicated to the wider local audience via mass media.A lengthy and in-depth feature article described the physical environment that the celebrations were being held, albeit on a reduced scale owing to the Coronavirus pandemic, and the various key local dignitaries that were present.There was an emphasis placed on the local townspeople being determined to celebrate despite the current obstacles and difficulties.Then there were extensive interviews with various veterans and the children of veterans, with their individual remembrances of the Great Patriotic War and Victory Day (Bobilev, 2021b).An article also stressed the importance of the contact and interaction between the Great Patriotic War generation and the contemporary youth generation in maintaining emotional and psychological links and learning through remembering (Bobilev, 2021c).Various norms and values of the time needed to gain victory were stressed, such as diligence, hard work, dedication to duty and so forth.

Oblastnaya gazeta coverage
The overwhelming majority of articles on Victory Day appearing in Oblastnaya Gazeta (regional newspaper) were published on the 8 th of May (seven out of nine).It was observed that various digital articles appearing on the 8 th of May were subsequently updated, especially on the 9 th of May.Significant use of photos was observed in the reporting, where photos tended to cover surviving veterans of the Great Patriotic War, military parades marking the celebration and military-historical re-enactments of the historical period.There was one such report in the period investigated that consisted only of various photos of the parade (Georgieva, 2021d).There was a measure of stress on reliving the iconic moments of historical memory using historical relics and direct links to this moment in the past.This was visually and emotionally manifested through a parade of some 100 modern and historical military vehicles through the 1905 Square in Yekaterinburg, the participation of military veterans and civilians from the era, and the lead vehicle of the parade displaying a copy of the Victory Banner that was carried by a Soviet motorcycle reconnaissance rider Dmitry Suvorov, a participant of Operation Bagration in Belarus against the German Army Group Centre (symbolically timed for exactly three years after the German Operation Barbarossa and the invasion of the Soviet Union) (Georgieva, 2021d).Another photo report covered the public fireworks displays ("Fireworks of Victory"), where text emphasized the cost and quantity of the fireworks, the locations of the displays, the size of the audience and other associated events (the public concert "Music of Victory") (Georgieva, 2021b;Petukhov et al., 2021).There are also photo reports on the residents, young and old, participating and interacting with the official commemorations on Victory Day."After the parade, the main attraction for the townspeople was the exhibition of military equipment, which was located behind the stands on the 1905 Square.Children climbed onto the exhibits, and their parents took pictures with pleasure" (Georgieva, 2021e).
Interestingly, there was a didactic end to the same article, which reminded the fact that participants forgot social distancing and some refusing to wear masks, where the media outlet reminded the public to adhere to their duty as enshrined by the official health policy in the new crisis for the collective good.It remarked on the rise in the number of new Coronavirus cases, "we can only hope that the holiday will not affect the statistics" (Georgieva, 2021e).Therefore, the celebration and communication of historical memory is brought to the present political priority and task of managing the pandemic.Some reporting before 76 th Victory Day anniversary focused on the intention of the organisers to "recreate the atmosphere of the park (Central Park of Culture and Leisure in Yekaterinburg) that reigned on May 9 in 1945" (Georgieva, 2021a).The events of the day were intended to be interactive, where officials and citizens alike were more than mere spectators of an iconic historical event.This is the process of the social construction, with relics, traces and personal memories as props for the communicated memory and cultural memory to engineer public reactions in the present through the recollection of the past.Mythmaking is at the forefront of forging national identity and transmitting intergenerational values and unity of the social collective through these public rituals.There is an embedded element of emotional nostalgia that connects past, present and the future.
There was high-level regional political participation in the event, with the regional governor of the Sverdlovsk Region, Yevgeny Kuyvashev, congratulating citizens of the Urals on the event and retelling the scale and cost of the war effort in the Ural region."We will never forget what a high price the Victory was given to us.We will forever preserve the main lesson-unity, freedom and greatness of spirit always win in the battle with the most formidable enemy" (Georgieva, 2021c).The aspect of acknowledging and dwelling upon the past sacrifice and deeds by the Soviet soldiers through a minute of silence.The political narrative to the public emphasized the need to relive and take in the iconic historical episodes that involved great deeds and efforts to overcome adversity to meet crises and prevail, especially when the "necessary" (read desirable) values are held by Russian citizens.Past deeds and results of greatness can be recreated and achieved if the lessons and the spirit of the past are not only learned but taken to heart and practiced was the red thread of the digital reportage.The discourse of the regional governor demonstrates the transmission of a contemporary collective unity in paying homage to historical grand deeds based on unity of purpose and sacrifice for the greater collective good as well as setting good role models for the present-day.

Discussion of results in relation to current state of the art literature
Victory Day serves as an iconic moment in a larger iconic event (the Great Patriotic War) for Russia, which is in keeping with how Leavy (2007) defines the nature and purpose of this type of collective memory of a national historical moment as well as a process of national mythmaking as envisaged by O'Shaughnessy (2004).The review of digital media outlet news in the Sverdlovsk Oblast has revealed that the quality of the news coverage is in-line with Oushakine's (2013, pp. 301-302) observation as history being envisioned as an assemblage of emotionally charged objects.The institution that is tasked with the inter-generational transmission of this memory, local and regional journalism, also follows the approach outlined by Erzikova and Lowrey (2020).This is supportive or neutral to the local political administration, which in turn takes its cue from the political narrative at the Federal level that understood the role and need for patriotism and belief in great historical deeds to recreate them in the present and future (Gevorkyan et al., 2000, p. 214).The media coverage of Victory Day validated Nugin's (2021) notion of negotiating memory through the reshaping, rearranging and reasoning of personal narratives to align with the national narrative.
This study represents a qualitative interpretation of mass media reportage of an iconic moment in Russia's historical memory and collective memory.It involves a selection of the main mass media outlets from the Sverdlovsk Oblast with a relatively small number of articles in total that cover a time period of one day either side of Victory Day, therefore this study is indicative of the trends at processes at play that are responsible for the inter-generational transmission of that historical memory in Russia, but also with lessons further afield on the importance of nurturing a specific interpretation of the historical memory during a period of increasingly contested political purpose and cultural identity.The observed and analysed media coverage of this work supports several observations on the symbolism and politics of the Great Patriotic War in general and Victory Day in particular.There is an observable operationalisation of the collective memory of the historical past to the priorities of contemporary politics, policy, culture and identity based along the lines of previous research (Abramova et al., 2021;Malinova, 2017;Opletina & Kunyaeva, 2019;Tumarkin, 2003;Wood, 2011).
The observed media coverage falls into the category of soft memory with the use of textual accounts and depictions of the historical memory of Victory Day to the present to establish a sense of authentic connection between the different generations as the number of direct connections decline with each passing year.The discourse of the mass media articles across the different newspapers emphasized, in terms of the norms and values expressed, the safety and health of the collective community over the individual.A great deal of reference was made to the sacrifice and the personal hardship of the individual in war (the Great Patriotic War) for the good of the country as a "voluntary" collective duty to keep alive the constructed communist community as the basis to prime and mobilise contemporary audiences to do their collective "duty" in "fighting" the pandemic.An idealised form of constructed collective memory that is crystallized emotionally in the Victory Day celebration is transplanted as a template and role model for contemporary citizens' attitudes and behaviour in the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Victory Day, in the forms of oral communication and the physical recording through historical re-enactments, keeps alive a subjective and interpretive construction of the past that links past with the present, while looking forward to the future.The results of the paper tend to support the idea of Obradović (2017) that the re-collection of memory and especially traumatic memory is indicative of underlying power relations in society, which is found in the approach to constructing collective memory for the purpose of its use as a means of cognitively engineering the norms, values and behaviour of citizens that belong to a specific group by influencing the construction of their culture, identity and their higher-order psychological needs (sense of purpose and belonging, self-actualisation and so forth).
From the background of this paper, Victory Day and the Great Patriotic War have played different political and social functions in Russian society.After the Soviet collapse some attempt was used to try and prevent further cascading collapse of the Russian Federation by trying to provide a common point of civic reference point for citizens.Under President Putin, the task seemed initially to be more aligned to developing a sense of pride and patriotism among citizens for them to believe in and strive for a better and brighter future remote from the recent memory of chaos of the Gorbachev and Yeltsin years.These are both strategic objectives intended to enhance state security and resilience to various forms of risk and hazard faced.In 2021, at the tactical (local) level, the collective memory of Victory Day was being used to try to prime and mobilize individual citizens as a collective to face the challenges of the pandemic.To facilitate the approach and policy of authorities in a low trust environment, political relations and power needed to be perceived as being necessary (to face another "existential" threat) to form a common united front against their common "enemy".

Future research
From February 2022, the Ukraine War quickly erupted, and a new set of threats emerged in the form of concrete state-based threats.This is an entirely different form of risk and threat, which can be seen.Thus, do the interpretations and findings of this study remain valid in the new environment of conventional and regular warfare between states?There may in fact be some changes in how Victory Day and the symbolic legacy of the Great Patriotic War is experienced and felt in the current context.This would make an excellent and necessary additional study to test whether the basic assumptions of his paper remain valid and actual in a new case that involves a very different foe than a virus.More future research should investigate and analyse the power relations inherent in the various specific socio-cultural contexts of crises in different crisis events and processes, where political imperatives construct and operationalise collective memory through mass mediated channels.

Conclusion
This present article covers the topic of how making selective use of the past can be a means of cognitively/psychologically managing aspects of a current crisis.In particular, how the memory and experience of the Great Patriotic War can be exploited on an iconic day of the year (Victory Day) as a means of engineering public perception and opinion of the Coronavirus pandemic, government responses and the results for the public.This is a very specific circumstance owing to the nature of the threat, there were attempts to prime and mobilize public sentiment to face the unseen "enemy" in the form of a virus.In the introduction of this paper two questions were posed.What do the specific and schematic narratives of the newspapers' coverage of Victory Day emphasize most?Are these identified narratives connected to any attempt to project specific values and identities linked to the communicated collective memory?Victory Day commemorations in the local and regional mass media outlets of the Urals fit Leavy's (2007) definition of an iconic event with the interpretive practices creating an integration of the myth within the framing of mediated discourses that carried social and political meaning.It is an apparent part of the process of myth creation enumerated by O'Shaughnessy (2004) that is flexible, possesses a ritualistic dimension and is intended to engineer social cohesion.This is part of Schudson's (1992) understanding of the role of group, institutional cultural recollection of the past influence people's actions in the present or at least this is attempted.That link to the past is a process of social construction through the interactions of relics, personal memories, and traces according to Assmann (2011).Collective memory is being shaped by the ideas noted by Markwick (2012) on the "holy trinity" of blood, sacrifice and nation that can become an integral and untouchable collective memory.Niven (2008), Halas (2010) and Tamm (2013) discussed the role and operationalisation of collective memory in the present and future for social and political goals; from this study, there are traces of this being attempted from a senders' perspective (not taking into account audience reception) as the mystery and aura of the Great Patriotic War are being used to try and engineer public perception and actions.Combinations of the above theoretical and conceptual connections to the empirical material, the highlighted "desirable" values and behaviour of citizens, then leads to what Assmann and Czaplicka (1995) refer to as the creation of individuals' obligations to the group.In this study, those individual obligations are found across the generations, which is why a common cognitive space is being sought through a national myth that makes use of collective memory.
The framing of newspaper content was not necessarily telling people what to think, but rather how to think and the flow-on effects on their behaviour and attitude.This is through the transmission of possible cognitive effects on their audiences from the communication of shared values, sense of belonging and purpose.There seems to be a connection between generating a sense of unity through patriotism in the communication of this specific fragment of historical memory across the generations.Where unity is understood as being a common national identity and a common national sense of purpose.And where patriotism is understood as being a sense of national pride in iconic historical moments, but also connecting past to the future, by projecting and mobilising citizens towards achieving great feats in the future as mentioned by Putin.Wertsch's (2008b, p. 133) distinct categorisation of specific and schematic narrative templates becomes more blurred in this case study owing the great resonance of this iconic historical moment at the popular (citizen level) and the political importance attached to it by the government (at local, regional and federal levels).News coverage of Victory Day emphasized such elements as patriotism, unity, individual sacrifice for the greater collective good, physical and psychological endurance in the face of present-day hardships.These constitute simultaneously a specific narrative and a schematic narrative, but where the physical and informational events on and around Victory Day provide a communicational vehicle for the inter-generational transmission of values and norms that are deemed to be essential for the smoother functioning of the hegemonic political body.There are some noticeable specific narratives too, such as contemporary youth learning from and honouring the Great Patriotic War generation, and the contemporary need for caution and doing one's duty during the Coronavirus pandemic for the collective good.
The selective use of constructed collective memory and its intergenerational transmission is far from being a solely Russian "thing", the United Kingdom and other countries use the collective memory of the Great War and in particular, Armistice Day (11 November), Australia and New Zealand use ANZAC Day (25 April).Trauma in the collective memory of the past is used to try and bind an increasingly fragmented society in the present.This is where the communication of collective memory tends to overcome reason with different emotions thereby hoping or helping to entrench or to overturn the system of incumbent political power relations in a society.This paper hints that one iconic event may possibly be variably used to achieve different aims and outcomes, depending on the dominant political imperative of the time and place.