Challenging Europe’s Memory Regime: The Far Right’s Narratives on Russia in The Shadow of War

Key findings from this study

This research indicates that:

• Far-right parties in Europe construct alternative historical narratives about Russia that directly challenge the EU's official memory and security frameworks.
• Historical memory functions as a primary mechanism through which far-right actors establish distinct national identities separate from EU institutional consensus.
• Competing mnemonic regimes reflect fundamental political divisions over how European security threats should be understood and addressed.

Overview

The study examines how far-right political parties in Europe—specifically the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Rassemblement National (RN), and Hungarian Civic Alliance (Fidesz)—construct alternative historical narratives about Russia in response to the European Union's official memory and security frameworks. The research is grounded in the observation that the EU's post-Cold War unity rhetoric, anchored in collective historical memory and shared values, has fractured amid the Ukraine conflict. The analysis employs mnemonic security as a conceptual lens to understand how these political actors link historical narratives to identity formation and security construction.

Methods and approach

Data sources included party websites, parliamentary transcripts, official social media accounts of parties and party leaders, YouTube channels of party leaders, published interviews, and media statements. The study focuses on three political organizations across Germany, France, and Hungary to capture regional variation in far-right responses to Russia and the EU's memory regime.

Results

The research reveals that far-right political actors construct historical narratives about Russia that diverge substantially from the EU's official security memory. These alternative narratives reframe Russia's position in European history, rejecting the EU's 'never again' rhetoric as the sole legitimate framework for understanding regional security. The parties integrate historical interpretations into identity construction, positioning their respective nations as distinct from the EU's unified memory project. These competing mnemonic regimes reflect deeper fractures in European political consensus regarding historical interpretation, security threats, and collective identity formation.

Implications

The findings demonstrate that memory-based security concerns now constitute a primary battleground in European political contestation. Far-right parties leverage historical narratives as tools for legitimizing geopolitical positions and mobilizing constituencies around alternative security visions. This memory-security nexus threatens the institutional coherence of the EU's collective identity framework. The divergence between official and alternative narratives suggests that future European security policy must account for competing interpretations of history as structural factors shaping political behavior and state relations.

Scope and limitations

This summary is based on the study abstract and available metadata. It does not include a full analysis of the complete paper, supplementary materials, or underlying datasets unless explicitly stated. Findings should be interpreted in the context of the original publication.