The monograph on extensive historical material analyzes the problems of the formation and evolution of historical memory of the events of the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War of the peoples of the countries - their main participants (Russia, France, Germany and Great Britain), the role of memory policy and its special form - anniversaries - in constructing ideas about the military past, images of war, historical myths about the war. The study examined the features and options for reformatting the memory of military events, revealed the forms and specifics of interaction between conflicts of power and the public (including historical) during the anniversaries of wars, as well as the goals, forms and results of the anniversaries.