For our third CBC-talk, hosted by Subproject 2, we were pleased to listen to Maria Mikaelyan's presentation titled "Shaping the Memory: Russian Museums as Political Instruments."

The lecture explores selected case studies addressing dissonant memories and political history in the light of the ongoing nationalization of historical memory started in 2012 and intensified significantly after the Russian invasion in Ukraine in 2022. By using such examples as the GULAG History State Museum in Moscow or the 'Perm-36' memorial, Mikaelyan traces the process of formation of fundamentally new cultural identities and, specifically, public policies in the field of memory in today’s Russia, which is progressively reviving neo-imperial rhetoric.