Russian-Polish relations have had a tumultuous history. Since the advent of the so-called ‘New Cold War’ heralded by Vladimir Putin in his 2007 Munich speech, the two countries have ended up on opposite sides. The New Cold War is fought not only on the governmental level. It is also found in history books, athletic competitions and other events where Poles and Russians can express their post-socialist identities and allegiances. For the most part, the ‘New Cold War’ is a battle for memory. In this paper, we offer a transnational Polish-Russian perspective on one of the memory wars fought in the post-socialist spaces. We propose to analyse how Polish-Russian antagonistic relations translate into online and offline conflicts during and in the aftermath of the UEFA Cup 2012, using big data analysis of new media, notably of YouTube and word-frequency software to identify the main themes of online discussions.

Language of contribution: English

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