From myths to memes Transnational memory and Ukrainian social media

The thesis examines what occurs with Second World War memories in post-socialist countries with the advent of digitization. For this purpose, it looks into various instances of digital remembrance associated with two episodes of the Second World War in Ukraine – the events surrounding the seizure of L’viv by Germans in 1941 and the capture of Kyiv by Soviets in 1943 – and draws upon existing memory and media scholarship to investigate how these contentious war memories are performed in post-socialist digital spaces. The thesis investigates how different social media platforms such as Wikipedia, YouTube, and VKontakte affect the ways Second World War memories are performed online, and how different communities of web users deal with historical controversies, particularly at a time of ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Its findings point out the ambiguous interactions between social media and cultural remembrance in post-socialist space, where digital technology is used both to reinforce hegemonic memory narratives and to sustain alternative visions of the past.