In contemporary Russia, the politics of memory are no longer limited to schoolbooks, museums, and official anniversaries. They also unfold through popular culture, urban space, and heritage. In recent years, the Russian state has increasingly treated the Soviet past as a source of political legitimacy, cultural authority, and patriotic consensus[1]. This has affected not only narratives of World War II and the Soviet victory, but also late Soviet culture, including rock music. One of the clearest and most troubling examples is Viktor Tsoi, the late frontman of the Soviet rock band Kino, who died in 1990. Tsoi is at once a late Soviet icon, a symbol of youth, loss, authenticity, and change, and the center of a wide network of fan memorial practices. Yet in the 2020s—especially after Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022—his songs and his image have been increasingly absorbed into patriotic and militarized state narratives. While Tsoi previously stood for openness, ambiguity, and existential freedom, he is now being reframed as a patriotic hero, and his music is being re‑coded for wartime mobilization. „Alexandra Kolesnik: Is Viktor Tsoi Alive? ON THE MILITARIZATION OF SOVIET ROCK HERITAGE IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA“ weiterlesen