“Unknown and Familiar”: The Image of the Hero in the Context of the Celebration of the Great Victory Day

In the year of the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory, meanings are interpreted that ensure the dominant position of the celebration of this significant date for Russia and the whole world in the general system of memorable events. The article in interdisciplinary manner analyze the features of the representation of the image of the hero of the Great Patriotic War in modern mass (media and political) discourse on the material of Internet texts — a key way of broadcasting and forming a mass idea of nowadays and past. The results of sociological measurements, media texts and regulations, meaningfully related to the image of the hero, are analyzed. An understanding of collective and individualized memory in the interpretation of M. Halbwachs, P. Ricoeur and K. Jaspers is presented, revealing the possibilities of the existence of phenomena, methods of their formation and the degree of influence on the individual perception of memorable events of 1941–1945. The understanding of the personified and unknown hero is differentiated, including the implementation of commemoration practices, integral characteristics are recorded. In conclusion there are methods of interpreting of the image of the hero and its functionality in the system of representations is formulated.