The Ribbon and the Regiment: Memory, Nostalgia, and the Quiet War for the Past

05.10.2025

By Nurul Rakhimbek

In the former Soviet world, memory is no longer a private thing. It walks in the streets each spring, worn on jackets, raised on banners, held in trembling hands. But look a little closer, and you’ll see: these aren’t just symbols of the past. They are tools of persuasion. A soft power, disguised as sentiment.

The “St. George’s ribbon”, the “Immortal Regiment” marches, the annual “Victory Day commemorations” — these rituals, once rooted in mourning and gratitude, have been quietly repurposed. They no longer serve only to remember World War II. They have become instruments of modern geopolitics. And in the shadows of these performances, a deeper struggle is taking place — not over history itself, but over who gets to tell it.

The Past as a Dividing Line

Across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, this subtle reweaving of memory has had very real consequences.

In Eastern Ukraine, the ribbon became a badge of allegiance — one that marked out loyalties more sharply than any passport. In Transnistria, it wrapped itself around the heart of the Moldovan identity struggle. In Georgia’s South Ossetia, Russian nostalgia has been deployed like a soft-spoken soldier, reinforcing Moscow’s presence with the quiet authority of “shared heritage.”

These aren’t isolated cases. They’re part of a pattern—a strategy that replaces tanks with traditions, and maps with myths. And yet, the strategy works because it speaks in the language of longing.

Nostalgia’s Quiet Power

What makes these symbols so effective is not that they lie. It’s that they remember selectively.

For millions, the Soviet era still evokes a sense of structure, purpose, and pride. The post-Soviet years brought chaos and fragmentation. In that vacuum, many reach for the old world — not because it was perfect, but because it was “theirs”. The black-and-orange ribbon offers a thread back to a time when things felt clearer.

That emotional pull is hard to resist. Which is why resistance, when it comes, often looks quiet — like someone simply choosing not to wear a ribbon, or a community gently stepping away from the familiar march.

A Different Path Through the Past

In Kazakhstan, that quiet resistance began to take shape years ago. Some intellectuals, cultural figures, and civic leaders began to question whether these imported rituals still served the country’s values, or if they were stitching Kazakhstan’s future to someone else’s past.

In 2015, a pivotal moment came when several voices, including the author, quiet but firm, called for the removal of the St. George’s ribbon from national commemoration practices. They argued not against memory itself, but against memory being borrowed, politicized, and weaponized. Their efforts stirred public debate, but ultimately, the ribbon was withdrawn from official events.

A decade later, in 2025, the conversation matured into action: the Immortal Regiment marches were discontinued nationwide. The reasoning was clear. Kazakhstan was not erasing the past, but choosing to remember it on its own terms. To honor sacrifice without importing the narratives that now accompany it elsewhere.

This wasn’t the work of a single figure or decree. It was the slow, deliberate work of cultural and political conscience—of a society beginning to ask: whose memory are we keeping? Whose story are we retelling?

Healing Without Illusion

True remembrance isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about clarity. Kazakhstan has begun the difficult work of creating new symbols—ones that speak to its own wounds and triumphs. Commemorations now look more inward: toward stories of repression under Stalin, toward Kazakh soldiers who fought in the war but never fit into the Russian narrative, toward communities that lost far more than they gained in the Soviet experiment.

The shift is subtle, but profound. It's not about replacing one set of symbols with another, but about **recovering agency over meaning**. About creating a space where history can be remembered, not re-enacted.

A Future Rooted in Honest Memory

Russia still tries to lead with sentiment. It tells its neighbors: remember how close we once were? Remember who we were, together?

But in places like Kazakhstan, the answer is no longer silence — or submission. It’s careful reflection. It’s the quiet decision not to pin on a ribbon. It’s the understanding that the future demands more than memory — it demands ownership of memory.

And sometimes, the most powerful resistance is simply choosing what not to carry forward.