Investigation of How Societies Remember and Commemorate Their Past Through Rituals

A monument is considered part of public history and is the thing that makes society's citizens understand or is supposed to understand particular events of history. One of the examples is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D. C. It is a monument dedicated to the fallen American soldiers in the Vietnam War; this memorial is a perfect wall made of polished black granite bearing the names of more than 58,000 soldiers who lost their lives in that war (Corbin, n. d.). Unlike many of the earlier war memorials, it is postmodern in that it subverts the decipherable and asks the viewer to question the monument's meaning rather than providing them with a rousing anthem of patriotic cheers for military victories.

On the other hand, collective memory can be defined as the sum of the available knowledge, concepts, and actualizations concerning a specific community. Some of these museums include the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, which highlights the history of apartheid in South Africa and the liberalization process in the country (Apsel et al., 2024). The museum educates, heals, and finds a way to move on through exhibits, stories, and other historical objects while steering the nation toward a better future. Collective memory is, therefore, a way of not only honoring deceased persons or past events but also a form of enlightenment and a way of influencing the direction of society.

Influential political organizations are involved in influencing memory, which can be done through policy-making and sanctioning social memory. May 9, Victory Day, commemorates the capture of Nazi Germany by the Soviet Union in World War II with military parades and open-air performances (Bermudez, 2024). The invisible work that the state does to organize these events and to promote them within the context of the war underlines themes of heroism and the constructed unity of the Russian people behind the war effort as part of the narrative about the war and the Russian state as the primary subjects constitutive of Russian identity.

With the help of new types of remembrance and new types of activism in the context of digital, marginalized narratives are getting heard, and the dominant frame of reference is interrupted. For instance, the push for the replacement of Columbus Day by Indigenous Peoples' Day in the United States is aimed at transforming the former from a glorification of the European invasion to a commemoration of Native American strength and rebellion (Reznick, 2019). Using social media and word, grassroots organizations push for change by raising awareness of the other side of the story and justice.

Exploring how societies continue to preserve and celebrate their history and traditions through such practices as remembrance, monument building, and continuity of generations traces the main project of sociology as the investigation of the relationship between history, identity, and power. Events and monuments like Hiroto Day, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and Victory Day reveal how routines and symbols influence public perception and construct national identities. On the other hand, collective memory is foundational to social unity, as it remains baptized in the ongoing conflict over the signifier. Awareness of these processes is crucial for comprehending current discussions on historical justice, memory, and promotion of societies that have not erased the memory of the past and take into account the perspectives of those denounced as perpetrators.