ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes to explore the fragile composition of symbolic and memorial investment in the 'Great Patriotic War' of 1941-45, the selective commemoration of the 1944 deportation, and the negation of the two recent wars in the public sphere of collective memory. Described collectively as traitors, the thousands of men among these 'punished people' who participated in the resistance against German troops were never officially recognized during the Soviet period. Historical figures outside the Soviet Union are also mobilized. The biographies of the Chechens who fought against Nazism are brought to light in different publications. Any memory policy will lead to a selection process, and face a complex equation between 'weight of the past' and 'choice of the past'. These choices make it possible to skip entire pages of Chechen history and are reflected in the vague, all-purpose phrases found on memorials when heroes are not clearly identified, thus allowing ambiguity.
