The subject matter of this article is memorial plaques content study dedicated to the most important socio-political events in the life of both individual cities or regions and the entire state. The purpose of the work is to identify and describe various interpretation models for the socio-political events presented on the memorial plaques as forms of commemoration. The authors have carried out the work on the basis of textual and artistic content analysis of a study sample of plaques (more than 400 units) dedicated to local and national socio-political events that had been set up in various parts of modern Russia over the last century. The main research method is that of the comparative analysis. The article is written from the standpoint of interdisciplinary approach while taking into account both special aspects of historical knowledge and main provisions of small-format text theory, political linguistics ideas and communication theory. As a result of the study, three main models of interpretation were identified: generalized standard model reflecting a tendency toward generalization; standard model which is characterized by its abundance and high degree imagery for a small-format text; selective-standard model highlighting the “primacy” of a specific event in the context of the interpretation of the past as the main characteristic of this model. Common to all three models is the text structure formed in the 1920s reflecting the three-dimensional coordinate system of a historical event, and the cognitive mechanism of generalization as the main mechanism for text building. The authors also showed differences in the use of metaphorization and defocusing strategies depending on the events interpretation model and the time of the memorial plaque creation. According to the authors, the identified events interpretation models confirm the legitimacy of setting apart the event memorial plaques as a special group of commemorative signs. The results of the study can be applied when making decisions on the installation of event memorial plaques, developing a concept for their content and determining the proportion of verbal and non-verbal elements in them.