Sacrifice. 80 years: from the Second to the Third World War (1945-2025).
Articles | | 505 | Author: Olena Zelenina
Collage by Olena Zelenina.
-- “Shall we have a smoke?” Roosevelt suggests and pulls out a chic silver cigarette case engraved with “To Franklin's Beloved from Eleanor. -- “Let's smoke,” Churchill agrees and pulls out a chic silver cigarette case engraved with “To the First Lord of the Admiralty from the officers of the Royal Navy. -- “Let's smoke,” Stalin says, and pulls out a chic silver cigarette case engraved with “To His Imperial Majesty Tsar Nicholas II from the merchants of the Nizhny Novgorod province.
This is, of course, an anecdote, a funny one, but one with a deep meaning, because it can say a lot about world leaders and even their countries 80 years ago.
As we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, we unwittingly return to historical events whose witnesses are almost completely dead, with a desire to better understand these events, to evaluate and reassess them in terms of the context of today, in the situation of the Third, and for some analysts, the Fourth World War.
And the most interesting thing is that we did not know or have forgotten a lot of things.
Because historical memory in Soviet and Western history textbooks followed, let's say, separate trajectories. It is all the more important to remember them on the Victory Day in World War II.
In January 2025, The Economist opened an archive of its publications dating back to 1945 in honor of the 80th anniversary of the Victory over Nazism.
And this article is based mainly on these unfamiliar materials.
Read more in the Ukrainian edition....
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