The Immortal Regiment: Photographs as Sympathetic Magic

We used to always have May 9th — “Victory Day,” Russians call it. I attended a few of them in Ukraine, as part of my job. Everyone holds up placards showing photographs of their relatives who supposedly fought in the Second World War. The Immortal Regiment. The whole institution was revitalised after the 2009 demonstrations against Putin stealing the Russian election. It’s a Soviet-era institution. The Immortal Regiment troll in modern Russia is about calling the souls of the dead.

When Putler is talking about the great patriotic war, that’s what he’s doing.

Source: Case Study: What’s the Mana in the Meme?

The Immortal Regiment is visual Disinfolklore operating as sympathetic magic — the Law of Contagion in action. Mass-produced photographic placards of dead relatives function as ritual objects. The photograph physically connects the living to the dead, and the dead to the state’s war narrative. See Tool 3: Mana in the Meme.

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