The presentation discusses the role of local public libraries in shaping memory about the Great Patriotic War in Russia today. With a particular focus on the Northwest of Russia, it will demonstrate how local libraries practice an emotional approach to commemoration, building close connections with their audiences through the feelings and personal histories they convey by means of material objects. Rendering local public libraries as powerful memory influencers in the region, the presentation will show their contribution to promoting local patriotism and remembering the militarized past.
Elena Kochetkova is currently an Associate Professor of Modern European Economic History at the Department of Archeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at the University of Bergen. She is the author of the monograph "The Green Power of Socialism: Wood, Forest, and the Making of Soviet Industrially Embedded Ecology" (MIT Press, 2024). She is currently working on a monograph on food modernity under state socialism. She is also working within the project "'Memory Politics of the North, 1993-2023", funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
