Abstract
Part I establishes the theoretical and methodological scaffolding for analysing how contemporary Russia converts Victory Day remembrance into symbolic capital. Synthesising Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic capital with structuration and network-power approaches, the paper advances a tri-level ‘state – party – society’ model that maps the institutional pathways through which collective memory becomes a strategic resource. Key concepts are refined and working hypotheses set out concerning the link between ritualised memory, social cohesion and regime legitimacy. A mixed qualitative design — participant observation, document analysis and comparative discourse tracing — is justified, delineating validity boundaries. Thus, Part I supplies an analytically consistent framework and operational indicators for the empirical tests reported in Part II.
Keywords
- collective memory
- symbolic capital
- institutional ritual
- theoretical framework
- methodology
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