ABSTRACT
The topic of masculinity arises naturally in the analysis of veterans’ memories from the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Memories are a peculiar social construct in which past events that the individual participated in, or was a witness to, become part of his own personal narrative, bricks in the construction of his life story and identity. Individual narrative is also influenced by the phenomenon of collective memory in cases where remembered events are significant for an entire social group – this refers to common, shared experiences about which it becomes acceptable to recall and emphasize some facts while keeping silent about others (Ricoeur 2004).
