SUMMARY:

This article analyses historical narratives of the political discourse of “Mongol-Soviet friendship.” The author’s attention is focused on the construction of heroes in these historical narratives, changes in heroic pantheons and shifting interpretations of heroes during the post-Soviet period. The old-new heroes inherited from the Soviet era today have to reflect new values of Mongolian nationalism as well as a new image of Russianness. Symbolic changes have generated specific commemorative practices which (re)create on new grounds the perception of a single historical-cultural space of Russia and Mongolia. An important part of these commemorative ceremonies address the memory of Soviet-Mongolian military cooperation. The Russian Orthodox Church and Russian national-cultural centers in Mongolia play an active role in the post-Soviet politics of memory. The article is based on materials collected during its author’s ethnographic research in Mongolia, as well as on discourse analysis of Soviet historical publications about Soviet-Mongolian relations (1950–1980s) and of the Russian-language press of modern-day Ulaanbaatar.