Global Conflict of the Past in Contemporary Media Space: Historical Memory in a Discursive Perspective

The article is devoted to an overview of studies on the discursive embodiment of historical memory, particularly, in the media. The research is aimed at the overview and systematization of, predominantly, international and Russian concepts of historical memory in academic literature. The scientific significance of research results is determined by the possibility of clarifying the definitions of historical memory in the process of systematizing the existing overseas and domestic studies. With that, the “starting point” of historical memory in this research are global political conflicts, particularly, World War I and World War II. The focus of research interest is the memory of the world wars which is discursively expressed in modern media space with various pragmatic tasks. Analysis of media materials allows for revealing the mechanisms of using historical memory as a tool for creating assessment and images while covering World War I and World War II. The research makes it possible to obtain a general discursive picture of the mass consciousness and, what is especially, important, to get specific data on the linguistic “content” of historical memory reflected in online media. The article is addressed to researchers in various fields of the Humanities, journalists and a wide circle of readers who are interested in the problem.