| Abstract: | Focusing on Smolensk Oblast’, one of the fiercest battlegrounds of both World War II and the Napoleonic War of 1812, this study analyses small-town responses to the Russian government’s ‘City of Military Glory’ war commemoration project implemented in 2006. By examining the ways in which local authorities and local residents redefined identities in the former wartime front region by reinventing local war symbols and reinterpreting local war memories, the article focuses on the central government’s success at mobilising local patriotism from below and the success of local authorities in consolidating local identity using war memories. |
