Authors

Discussion

The Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, consecrated in 2020 in Patriot Park outside Moscow, has been widely interpreted as a symbol of militarisation and Orthodox-state mutual legitimation. While these readings capture its immediate political messaging, they risk flattening the building into a singular propaganda event. This paper instead situates the cathedral within Russia’s long tradition of using architecture as a tool of nation-making. I argue that what makes the cathedral significant is less its military iconography than its role in placemaking: where the built environment is not a reflection of government ideology but an active agent in disseminating it. The cathedral employs a Neo-Byzantine strand of Russian Revival architecture, invoking pre-Petrine ‘Holy Rus’ as a usable past. By examining the cathedral’s design and its integration into the larger Patriot Park complex, the paper highlights how the Russian state continues to construct 'symbolic cities' that materialise identity, in continuity to St Petersburg, Magnitogorsk and Skolkovo. Building on theories of cultural memory (Assmann, Halbwachs), lieux de mémoire (Nora), and the production of space (Lefebvre), I suggest that nationalism studies should take placemaking more seriously as a central, not peripheral, mechanism of identity formation. The cathedral exemplifies how the Russian state employs architecture with systematic intensity to naturalise its civilisational narrative.