Introduction: The 80th Anniversary of 1945 and the Commemorative Functions of the Just War

By connecting the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World
War in 2025 to broader transformations in the global order, this introduction aims to
cast the anniversary, and the contested transmission of the legacies of 1945, in a historical
perspective. The celebratory discourses in the leading victorious and defeated countries
show the interplay between memory politics, international realignments, and changing
representations of war. The anniversary unfolded amid the erosion of the Western alliance
and its post-war nexus linking antifascism, democracy, social rights, and multilateralism.
The resurgence of national and victim-centred narratives, along with the normalization
of spurious wars (i.e. undeclared yet intensely fought conflicts), has fostered new memory
clashes over Ukraine, Gaza, and the colonial legacies of WWII in Asia. The celebrations’
renewed appeals to patriotic and just war challenge the cultures of critical memory that
emerged from the catastrophe of total war.

Keywords: Just war, Spurious war, WWII commemorations, Politics of memory.

Parole chiave: Guerra giusta, Guerra spuria, Commemorazioni della Seconda guerra
mondiale, Politica della memoria.

Trump’s America and the Rewriting of 1945: What «Good War»?

This essay examines the shifting public memory of World War II in the United States
by focusing on the rise of Trumpian nationalism and the commemorations of the 80th
anniversary of 1945. It argues that the long-standing myth of the «good war», traditionally
mobilized to legitimize American liberal internationalism, has been radically resemanticized
by the Maga movement. Whereas earlier presidential narratives framed 1945 as a
foundational moment of a multilateral order grounded in democracy, freedom, and US
global responsibility, Trumpian nationalism recasts that legacy in exclusionary, sovereignist,
and civilizational terms. This essay shows how this transformation reflects deeper fractures
within American democracy and the postwar international order, while marking the erosion
of the normative link between US power, interdependence, and liberal multilateralism.

Keywords: Narratives, Memory, «Good war», Maga, Trumpian nationalism.

Parole chiave: Narrazioni, Memoria, «Buona guerra», Maga, Nazionalismo trumpiano.

The Chinese Resistance and World War II: A Contribution to Be Reassessed

With few exceptions, historiography has generally proposed an evaluation of the Second
World War in which the role of Chinese resistance to Japanese aggression has been omitted
or at least considered marginal, despite the fact that the war had already been raging in
the Far East for more than two years prior to September 1939. This contribution aims to
emphasize that, especially in recent years, a strong and growing emphasis has been placed
in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the fundamental importance of Chinese
resistance, with the dual aim of challenging Western approaches in both historical analysis
and foreign policy. At the same time, we will attempt to briefly discuss the question as
to how commemorations of the end of the Second World War have been promoted and
organized in the PRC and Taiwan, showing elements of both sharing and division relating
to historical memory that clearly reflect the existing political divisions.

Keywords: Second World War, Chinese resistance, Historical memory.

Parole chiave: Seconda guerra mondiale, Resistenza cinese, Memoria storica.

Commemorating Victory in the Russian Federation

This essay deals with the celebrations organized in the Russian Federation for the eightieth
anniversary of victory in World War II. Over the past twenty years, victory in the «Great
Patriotic War» has become the fulcrum of a patriotic politics of history and memory in
Russia, aiming to heal the political and ideological fractures of the twentieth-century in the
name of the continuity of the sovereign Russian state. The May 9th celebrations have now
become the cornerstone around which a complex commemorative architecture has been
built: a dense network of patriotic initiatives spreads throughout the year and across the
diverse territories of the vast Federation. It mobilizes citizens and associations, professional
and social groups, engages schools and cultural institutions, and pays particular attention
to the younger generations.

Keywords: Memory of the Great Patriotic War, Russian politics of history, May 9th
celebrations.

Parole chiave: Memoria della Grande guerra patriottica, Politica russa della storia,
Celebrazioni del 9 maggio.

Memories of V-Day in the United Kingdom Post-Brexit: Sovereignty, Tradition, and Postcoloniality

This article examines the 80th anniversary commemorations of Victory Day in the United
Kingdom as a privileged site for analysing the reconfiguration of British national identity
in the post-Brexit era. Situating the 2025 celebrations within a context shaped by geopolitical
instability, the war in Ukraine, and intensifying postcolonial debates, it argues that
the memory of the Second World War has become a central discursive framework through
which Britain negotiates sovereignty, historical continuity, and international legitimacy.
Through analysis of commemorations, speeches, media discourse, and public debates, the
article identifies three dynamics: the mobilisation of «1945» to sustain competing forms of
British exceptionalism; the growing incorporation of imperial and Commonwealth histories
into commemorative culture; and the moralisation of memory in relation to support for
Ukraine. It argues that the anniversary marks the transition from a living cultural memory
to a mediated one, revealing «1945» as a contested and flexible signifier within post-Brexit
Britain.

Keywords: V-Day, Brexit, British exceptionalism, Postcolonial memory, British postwar Cultural
memory.

Parole chiave: V-Day, Brexit, Eccezionalismo britannico, Memoria postcoloniale, Memoria
culturale britannica del secondo dopoguerra.

The Anniversary of the End of the World War II in France

The article examines the public celebrations held in France to mark the 80th anniversary
of the end of World War II. On May 8, 2025, the celebrations assumed the triumphant
character of a French victory over the Third Reich, in keeping with the Gaullist interpretation
which sees that day as a symbol of national redemption following the defeat of June 1940;
by contrast, in the months leading up to the celebrations, the country had come to view the
anniversary as a popular liberation from Nazi-Fascism. The article provides an overview of
the initiatives undertaken, traces the evolution of the May 8 commemoration in post-World
War II France, and examines the role played by the Fifth Republic presidents in this context.
The text also recalls the various historical disputes that have marked the history of World
War II in France – between Collaboration and Resistance – noting that the commemorations
in 2025 are almost entirely devoid of such controversies, in a world profoundly transformed
by new political and military events.

Keywords: France, World War II, French resistance, Public memory, French Fifth Republic.

Parole chiave: Francia, Seconda guerra mondiale, Resistenza francese, Memoria pubblica,
Quinta repubblica francese.

Eighty Years Later, in Japan: When the Dead Cannot Die

This article examines the transformation of public memory of WWII in postwar Japan,
analyzing how commemorative practices have mirrored shifting political, social, and
international contexts from 1945 to the present. It identifies three major phases – from
the US Occupation to the Cold War and the post-Cold War era – in which narratives of
victimhood, responsibility, and pacifism were reconfigured. Focusing on the celebrations of
the 80th anniversary in 2025, the article shows how official ceremonies, nationalist rituals at
Yasukuni Shrine, and anti-nuclear commemorations in Hiroshima have exposed enduring
contradictions between Japan’s pacifist self-image and renewed conservative pressures
toward rearmament and historical revisionism.

Keywords: War memories Japan, Yasukuni Shrine, Cold War, Japanese nationalism.

Parole chiave: Memoria di guerra in Giappone, Santuario Yasukuni, Guerra fredda,
Nazionalismo giapponese.

End of Certainties and New Dissonances: May 8, 1945, in German Memory Culture

At no other time in Germany has there been such widespread and diverse public
commemoration of the end of World War II as in 2025. To better understand current
developments, this article outlines the phases through which public commemoration
of the end of the War in Germany has changed since 1945. This approach highlights
the ambivalences inherent in the public celebrations of May 8 in Germany since the
very beginning. It also draws attention to how rapidly, beneath the surface of apparent
consensus, radical changes are occurring in Germany’s culture of memory. These changes
are accompanied by growing dissonance in politics and public opinion. It is difficult not
to notice that the culture of remembrance in the Federal Republic of Germany has now
entered a crisis.

Keywords: Second World War, Culture of remembrance, Political culture, Age of consensus.

Parole chiave: Seconda guerra mondiale, Cultura della memoria, Cultura politica, Epoca del
consenso.

«Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum». Crisis of Multilateralism and Warmongering Rhetoric in Italy

The deconstruction of the public narrative and the delegitimization both of the international
political-legal order and the political-constitutional framework of republican democracy in
Italy became particularly intense in 2025. These processes certainly did not begin in 2025;
if anything, they have progressed in stop-and-go phases since the 1990s. But on the 80th
anniversary of 1945, they appear to have undergone a significant acceleration, undoubtedly
fuelled by the positions taken by the US under the leadership of Donald Trump. This essay
reconstructs and discusses the stages of these processes in Italy: a warmongering rhetoric,
aimed at challenging supranational institutions and legitimizing rearmament policies,
has been countered by a civic pedagogy that has found in the President of the Republic a
constant driving force in favour of the need to strengthen multilateralism and to enhance
the role of international law in the pursuit of peace and coexistence among States.

Keywords: Liberation Day, Collective memory, President of the Republic, Resistance,
Warmongering.

Parole chiave: Festa della Liberazione, Memoria collettiva, Presidente della Repubblica,
Resistenza, Bellicismo.

The Bretton Woods Order: Historiographical Questions on the (Declining) Foundations of
Multilateralism

This forum examines the new international system that emerged following World War II,
focusing on the so-called «Bretton Woods order», the rise of an oil-centred energy system,
and of a new paradigm of international legitimacy based on the respect for human rights.
This discussion takes place at a time when the international order that emerged after
1945 is undergoing a profound crisis. In fact, in recent years, the United Nations’s role in
maintaining peaceful relations among nations, the human rights protection regime, and the
entire framework of economic multilateralism that took shape following the Bretton Woods
negotiations have been simply ignored or radically challenged.

Keywords: Bretton Woods, Human rights, Petroleum, Embedded Liberalism, Global South.

Parole chiave: Bretton Woods, Diritti umani, Petrolio, Liberalismo controllato, Sud globale.