Opinion: What May 9 Means to a Generation Without War Memories
One evening, sitting beside my grandmother, we opened an old photo album, the kind with thick pages and photographs tucked carefully beneath thin plastic sheets. We turned the pages slowly. At one photograph, she stopped. It showed her as a young girl beside a close relative she rarely speaks about, a man who never came home from the war. The mood changed almost instantly. For her, May 9 is not simply a date. It belongs to a family story shaped by absence, grief, and survival. For me, it is inherited. For many people of my generation, May 9 is no longer a memory of war itself, but a memory passed down by those who lived closer to it. That distance is changing the meaning of Victory Day in Kazakhstan and across much of Central Asia. The day still carries enormous symbolic weight, but the link between public commemoration and private family memory is becoming less direct. What older generations remember, younger generations are increasingly asked to learn. What Remains for Those Who Remember For older generations, May 9 remains deeply personal. It is tied to lives shaped by loss, names repeated year after year, stories retold within families, and the enduring presence of those who never returned. The meaning of the day is not abstract for people who lived through the war or grew up in its immediate aftermath. It is part of their family history. In many households, remembrance is expressed less through public slogans than through quieter acts: visiting memorials, keeping photographs, passing down names, or sharing stories that do not need much explanation. For those generations, the past has not fully receded. It remains close to the surface of the present. A Generation That Learns, Not Remembers For younger people, the connection is often weaker and less detailed. The war may still be respected, but it is no longer remembered in the same way. It is encountered through family fragments, school lessons, monuments, ceremonies, and public language rather than through the direct emotional force of lived experience. This generational gap is visible in recent polling. A 2025 survey by the Center for Social and Political Research “Strategy,” based on 1,100 respondents across nine regions of Kazakhstan, found that 46% of people aged 18-24 knew someone in their family had participated in the war but could not recall any details. Another 33% had no information at all. Among respondents over 55, only 13% reported similar uncertainty. The same survey found that many respondents could not identify a significant historical figure connected to the war, while nearly one in five could not name a single wartime event. These gaps suggest more than a decline in historical knowledge. They point to a weakening personal connection to what was once a defining collective experience. When Memory Exists Without Experience As lived experience gives way to inherited knowledge, remembrance changes form. Historical events are preserved through families, schools, state ceremonies, monuments, and media, but the emotional connection becomes harder to sustain. A...
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