Bulgarian and Ukrainian experience of implementing European legal acts on decommunization.

Purpose. The process of implementing the European Union (EU) and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) legal acts regulating policy on memory in Bulgaria and Ukraine and identifies the factors that influenced its course are explored in the article. Methods. Resolutions, Bulgarian and Ukrainian laws, the press and online publications are used to achieve this goal. The implementation of pan-European legal acts on memory policy was determined by some factors in both countries. Large part of the population is loyal to the communist past. Scientific novelty. It is slowed down implementation of European legal acts. Political parties used this sentiment in the struggle for power. Conclusions. The implementation was opposed by political forces loyal to the Russian federation that consequently justified Soviet totalitarianism. The expansion of the EU to the east in 2004 and 2007, the occupation of Crimea, the beginning of the armed aggression of the Russia in the Donbass in 2014, and scale invasion of the Russian army in Ukraine in 2022 significantly accelerated the implementation of European legal acts on the policy of memory in Bulgaria and Ukraine.