The aim of the study is to examine the activities of professional academic associations in the U.S., which are close to the memory institutions in Europe. The author examines the role of professional associations as memory institutions in the development of memorial culture through the representation of the past in contemporary politics, its reflection in public and public spaces of American society. The novelty of the study lies in the comparison of institutions that determine the main vectors and trajectories of historical policy as memory policy in the United States. The article analyses the problems of the activities of institutionalized actors of collective memory policy in the U.S., including the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians and the Southern Historical Association. It hypothesizes that these groups can shape civil society versions of collective memory as alternatives to politically motivated use of the past by political elites. The article deals with the institutional and formal features of historical politics in the United States, the participation of historical associations in memorial confl icts and “memory wars”, issues of politicization of history and the academic community’s attempts at forming a canon of historical collective memory which is formally free from ideological infl uences. The activities of professional historical associations have supposedly been a factor in the development of revisionism in the interpretation of the history of the American South and the Confederate States of America. Therefore, the author considers the role and responsibility of American historians as public intellectuals who shaped compromise versions of memorial culture that contributed to the consolidation of society. The article highlights the contribution of professional historical associations as memory institutions to the development of mnemonic spaces of American society and its memorial culture. It analyses the attempts of American historians to preserve the “purity” of academic research in the context of the growing ideologization and instrumentalization of history by ruling elites. The research results suggest that memory institutions are an important factor in the development of contemporary identities in the United States in the context of revision of the past and the formation of new or alternative memorial canons in American political culture.

The intellectual history of Galician nationalism comprises a set of political and cultural concepts that defined the principal vectors and trajectories of nationalist ideology. The aim of this study is the integrate analysis of Celtism as one of the historical frameworks within the intellectual development of Galician nationalist thought. This determines the study’s novelty for Russian historiography. The author examines the cultural and social strata of Celtic ideas as a mode of Galician nationalist imagination. The article addresses: (1) the genesis and place of Celtic imagery in the history of ideas of Galician nationalism; (2) the forms and manifestations of political Celtism within Galician nationalist ideology; (3) the depoliticization and de-ideologization of Celtic narratives in post-authoritarian society; and (4) the transformation of political Celtism toward cultural nationalism, whereby Celtic ideas became part of Galicia’s academic discourse. It is argued that Celtism’s transformation into a political tradition of nationalism resulted from the instrumentalization of Celtic heritage and its integration into the ideological contexts of Galician nationalism. In analyzing Celtism as a segment of Galician nationalist ideology, the author contends that Galician nationalists’ use of these ideas legitimized their political and ideological claims by satisfying a collective demand for possession of illustrious historical ancestors. The article also examines Galician nationalism as a predominantly cultural and intellectual movement in relation to the development of Celtism as an imagined and invented political tradition. The author’s principal conclusions are as follows: (1) over time, the Celtic idea mutated from a form of political discourse into one manifestation of cultural nationalism; (2) the development of the Celtic myth became a form of solidarity between Galician and Irish nationalism; and (3) in the 20th century, Celtic narratives functioned as a cultural archaism, genetically linked to the traditions of Romantic nationalism and therefore incapable of resolving concrete political tasks.