INTRODUZIONE. L’OTTANTESIMO ANNIVERSARIO DEL 1945 E LE FUNZIONI CELEBRATIVE DELLA GUERRA GIUSTA

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 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.