Russia's Nineties Generation and their Cultural & Collective Memory of the Soviet Union

This study examines memory of the Soviet Union and political opinions in modern Russia through qualitative, semi-structured interviews across generations in two Russian cities. The study aims to explore the differences in memory and meaning of the Soviet Union across generation and geography, and to connect those differences to political dispositions in modern Russia. Respondents were asked about their impressions of the Soviet Union and modern-day Russia, and responses were coded for emergent themes and trends. The research finds that youth bifurcate along geographic lines; respondents in St. Petersburg were more likely to reject Soviet ideals than their counterparts in Yoshkar-Ola. The former also tended to prefer liberalism and globalization, while the latter expressed greater nationalism. Older respondents showed no distinct geographic trend, but gave more nuanced assessments of the Soviet Union due to the power of personal memory over cultural reconstruction. In younger respondents, these findings indicate that living in a cosmopolitan metropolis may condition interpretations of the Soviet past and influence contemporary political identity toward globalization. Youths living in smaller cities have less interaction with other global cities and therefore may have more conservative perceptions of the Soviet Union and Russia.

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Remembering and forgetting: the state policy of memorializing Stalin's repression in post-Soviet Kazakhstan

Nationalities Papers ◽

10.1080/00905992.2016.1158157 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 44 (4) ◽

pp. 611-627 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Zhanat Kundakbayeva ◽

Didar Kassymova

Keyword(s):

National Identity ◽

Soviet Union ◽

Collective Memory ◽

National Unity ◽

Common System ◽

Nation States ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Museum Exhibitions ◽

The Creation ◽

The Government

The general perception of Western analysts and observers is that the nation-states created as a result of the breakup of the Soviet Union all treat the memory of the dark, repressive aspects of the Stalinist regime in public spaces as a symbolic element in the creation of a new post-Soviet identity [Denison, Michael. 2009. “The Art of the Impossible: Political Symbolism, and the Creation of National Identity and Collective Memory in Post-Soviet Turkmenistan.”Europe-Asia Studies61 (7): 1167–1187]. We argue that the government of Kazakhstan employs non-nationalistic discourse in its treatment of Stalinist victims’ commemoration in a variety of forms, through the creation of modern memorial complexes at the sites of horrific Soviet activity (mass burial places, labor camps, and detention centers), purpose-built museum exhibitions, and the commemorative speeches of its president and other officials. Kazakhstan's strategy in commemorating its Soviet past is designed to highlight the inclusiveness of repression on all peoples living in its territory at that time, not just Kazakhs, thereby assisting in bringing together its multinational and multiethnic society. Thus, the official stance treats this discourse as an important symbolic source of shaping the collective memory of the nation, based on “a general civil identity without prioritizing one ethnic group over another — a national unity, founded on the recognition of a common system of values and principles for all citizens” [Shakirova, Svetlana. 2012. “Letters to Nazarbaev: Kazakhstan's Intellectuals Debate National Identity.” February 7. Accessed July 28, 2015.http://postsovietpost.stanford.edu/discussion/letters-nazarbaev-kazakhstans-intellectuals-debate-national-identity].

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THE COLLECTIVE MEMORY AS A TRAUMA FOR THE GERMAN ETHNICS FROM ROMANIA. CASE STUDY: GERMANS’ DEPORTATIONS FROM BUKOWINA TO THE SOVIET UNION (1945-1949)

Territorial Identity and Development ◽

10.23740/tid120172 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 18-30

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Collective Memory ◽

The Soviet Union

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Post-Soviet collective memory: Russian youths about Soviet past

Communist and Post-Communist Studies ◽

10.1016/j.postcomstud.2015.06.003 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 48 (2-3) ◽

pp. 137-145 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Valeria Kasamara ◽

Anna Sorokina

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Collective Memory ◽

Russian Federation ◽

Social Groups ◽

The Past ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

The Russian Federation ◽

The Given ◽

Research Show

The research is focused on the image of the Soviet Union and that of its successor — the Russian Federation — in the minds of the Russian student youth. The concept of collective memory, being interdisciplinary and highly debatable, has been used in the given paper in its broad socio-cultural sense meaning the attitudes of interconnected social groups regarding the past and the present. The participants of the poll were 100 students from the leading Moscow universities. They had been born after the Soviet Union collapse, so, the majority of them have a very obscure idea of the Soviet reality, simultaneously feeling nostalgia for the Soviet political past. The results of the research show that the image of the Soviet Union drastically differs from that of Russia in the young people’s minds being positive and negative, respectively.

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Visual Representations of “the Russian” in European Remembrance Cultures

East Central Europe ◽

10.1163/18763308-04303002 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 43 (3) ◽

pp. 298-313

Author(s):

Petra Mayrhofer

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Mass Media ◽

Eastern Europe ◽

Collective Memory ◽

Public Memory ◽

Visual Representation ◽

Visual Representations ◽

Communist System ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Visual Changes

The post-communist transformation in Eastern Europe was marked by visual changes through iconoclastic actions and attempts to erase the visibility of the former communist system that was synonymous with the influence of the Soviet Union. Images of the removal and destruction of monuments have found their way into collective memory through their circulation in mass media, textbooks, films, exhibitions, and museums. This article explores the visual representation of “the Russian”1 in various European memory cultures in combination with the visual remembrance of the transformation that started in 1989. It aims to examine how images published in quality mass media in 2009 depict public memory twenty years later.

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Suppressed Remembrances

The Forgotten Front ◽

10.5810/kentucky/9780813175416.003.0018 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 287-304

Author(s):

Kristiane Janeke

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Collective Memory ◽

First World War ◽

Soviet Regime ◽

World War ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

The First World War ◽

History Of ◽

Ideological Identity ◽

First World

Kristiane Janeke traces the history of the Moscow Brothers’ (Soldiers’) Cemetery, using the specific case of this memorial to wartime fallen as a springboard to a wider discussion of suppressed memories of the First World War in Russia. The chapter argues that remembrance of the war was deliberately stifled as part of the Bolshevik project of creating a new ideological identity for the fledgling Soviet regime. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, there have been efforts to restore Russians’ collective memory of the First World War.

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Humor and Memory

East Central Europe ◽

10.1163/18763308-04303001 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 43 (3) ◽

pp. 257-277

Author(s):

Carola Heinrich

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Collective Memory ◽

Cultural Translation ◽

The West ◽

Communist System ◽

Soviet Authority ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

The Revolution

With the Revolution in December 1989, Romania not only rejected the communist system but also Soviet authority and orientated itself towards the West. This paper explores what is remembered of Russia and the Soviet Union after 1989 and how Romanian dramas and films represent these memories. The paper studies three examples of staging “the Russian”: the radio theatre presentation of Petru by Vlad Zografi, the theatre piece Istoria comunismului povestită pentru bolnavii mintal by Matei Vişniec, and the movie Nunta mută by Horaţiu Mălăele. Memory is understood here as a process of cultural translation and the analysis aims to track the particularities of these representations that contribute to the negotiation of collective memory. The analyzed works seem to reinforce prevalent stereotypes, but these are inverted through comic devices. Humor is therefore identified as one of the main strategies for dealing with a violent past.

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The Literary “No” to Politically Tabooed Topics during the Polish People’s Republic. The Case of Tadeusz Konwicki’s Prose Writing

Miscellanea Posttotalitariana Wratislaviensia ◽

10.19195/2353-8546.1(5).8 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

pp. 91-102

Author(s):

Hanna Gosk

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Collective Memory ◽

Area Of Interest ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Post War ◽

Literary Resistance ◽

The Grotesque

Using the example of characteristic works by Tadeusz Konwicki, one of the main post-war Polish writers, the article discusses literary ways of taking up topics functioning in the Polish People’s Republic as political taboos. War and post-war relations with the Soviet Union, the fate of Polish inhabitants of the eastern borderlands, the motif of the Home Army struggle against the Soviet army altogether constituted a proscribed area of interest. The analysis shows how the literary resistance against silencing, expressed through allusions, understatements, the poetics of traumatic realism and the grotesque — makes the writer an agent of collective memory.

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