The Limits of Celebration

National Days as ‘Commemobrative’ Rituals

In 2022, six months into the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, gov-ernmental authorities announced that there would be no public celebrations on Ukraine’s National Day. Celebrated since 1991 on 24 August, Ukraine’s national day marks the country’s declaration of independence in the context of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Until the Russian Federation’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, however, the holiday struggled to capture…