PoSoCoMeS (Post-Soviet and Contemporary Memory Studies) Working Group 2026 of the International Memory Studies Association will organize its Third Annual Conference, with the theme “Post-Soviet Memory in Times of Crises and Speculations.” The conference will be held in Armenia on January 22-24. The event will be hosted by Yerevan State University.

In the context of deep regional crises – military, diplomatic, and humanitarian – the ways in which post-socialist communities and their leaders remember and reinterpret the past are undergoing significant transformations. Memory in the post-socialist space (as in other contexts around the world) is a dynamic battlefield, where competing versions of history struggle for dominance, closely intertwined with current wars.

The conference will place special emphasis on its location, with additional attention paid to Armenia and the South Caucasus, a constantly evolving post-socialist region where the field of memory remains in a state of constant movement and transformation. Armenia is a country steeped in the memories of displaced populations. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it provided refuge to the thousands of survivor of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire (1915-1923). In recent years (2020–2023) Armenia has become a haven for over 120,000 refugees from Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). The memory of forced migration, in the context of ongoing contemporary crises, introduces new dimensions to the already complex humanitarian, emotional, and legal challenges faced by this population. This conference invites scholars to critically examine how cultural memory interacts and relates to post-socialist epistemological and real-life crises, and what are the strategies for remembering them.