Search

This paper delves into the ways in which art and cultural expressions have helped to preserve the memory of the Ukrainian Revolution and how the Maidan Museum contributes to this effort. Specifically, the study explores the significance of the Maidan event in Ukraine’s national memory culture and how it is being integrated into the country’s historical narrative as part of the decommunization and decolonization processes. Additionally, the text examines how the politics of memory, as expressed through the museum’s performances and aesthetics, can serve as a tool of collective and national resistance. Ultimately, the article argues that the Maidan event is not fixed but rather dynamic, and Maidan memory plays a critical role in Ukraine’s ongoing transition away from a shared historical past with Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politologija is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article analyzes the popular response to Soviet myths in the post-Soviet period through the lens of the complicated treatment of Zoia Kosmodem'ianskaia. As arguably the most famous Soviet World War II martyr, Kosmodem'ianskaia's image splintered after glasnost' and has been located at the nexus of debate in various media since 1991. This paper poses questions about the fracturing of national memory when a nation has undergone upheaval: about the stability of heroes, about citizens' responses to them, and about heroes' transformation in the new regime. Catriona Kelly has demonstrated that the treatment of a national hero can illuminate the circumstances that produced the hero and the cultural climate of subsequent decades. Building on her work, this article asks "Why and how has the image of Kosmodem'ianskaia remained relevant while other Soviet heroes have been neglected since 1991?" This article posits that Kosmodem'ianskaia's continued significance lies above all in the flexibility of her image and the transitional aspects of her body. Her depictions in various contexts represent prominent responses to the authoritarian regime which gave birth to both Kosmodem'ianskaia and her legacy. The variety of her images demonstrates the continued relevance of this figure two decades after the collapse of the USSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese people have repeatedly constructed collective memories of Russia on the basis of their experiences and imagination regarding "Siberia." After their experiences of World War Two most Japanese people shared feelings of one-sided victimhood toward the Soviet Union. At the same time, some of them loved Soviet culture, respected Soviet science, or idolized the Soviet Union as the great leader of the leftist movement. Lack of concrete information on the Soviet Union sometimes even caused some people to excessively idealize it. Mikhail Gorbachev greatly improved Japanese people's feelings of closeness to the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s. However, these trends disappeared rapidly with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Japanese people who witnessed political and economic turmoil in Russia from the early to the late 1990s again came to have a negative attitude toward Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Amazonia Investiga is the property of PRIMMATE and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

After the horrific experiences of ex-Yugoslavia, the tragedy of Ukraine reveals the terrible consequences of the memory conflicts radicalization. Anticipated by a constant mnemonic war led by the Russia particularly against its Eastern neighbors, it proves "what happens when memory wars turn into real wars". Since the end of Cold War, in the context of the re-nationalization of ideologies, the remythologization of national histories, and the reshaping of memory politics, the European memory games, as part of the struggle for recognition, have often became memory wars. This article provides some relevant insights about the political instrumentation of the "restorative nostalgia"/"retrotopia" in the (post-)Cold War illiberal memory games/wars, against the background of the growing crises connected to the rise of neo-nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Orthodox island monastery of Valaam in Russian Karelia is today a popular destination for Finnish tourists visiting Russia's western borderlands. Many of these tourists are descendants of the Karelians who had evacuated the area following World War II. The monastery's institutionally sanctioned genealogies construct it as the civilizing force, which had brought Christian enlightenment to the local heathen population. This discursive template is played out in the way the place is presented to visitors, with each highlight telling a carefully constructed story that promotes the monastery's significance for the Russian religious and national identity. Yet, drawing on lived experience, as well as on popular culture, family lore and meanings from collective memory, the Finnish visitors break the monolithic official discourse and produce a complex "third-space" in their own measure. This paper is based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews conducted during a homeland visit to Ladogan Karelia in June 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an overview of the renaming tendencies in Russia of the 2010s and the main stakeholders of the name changing. On the base of the administration websites, online media petitions and other open sources, three cases are examined in detail: 1) Perm, where half of Maksim Gorky street was renamed after the surgeon Sergey Sukhanov in 2015; 2) Kazan, where at the same time Esperanto street was renamed after Nursultan Nazarbaev, causing mass protests for several years; 3) Volgograd, with the discussions about returning to its older name Stalingrad being led for years. Based on the analysis of these cases, the following tendencies are identified: changes of stakeholders motivation for renamings, transfer of power to name from parliamentary institutions to administration, a new perception of the city center and distant districts; and, finally, the appearance of alternative mechanisms of social memory encouraged by the wiping out of older names. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's and Ukraine's common and contested past(s) became fundamental in the development of the Ukraine crisis. Not only did the complicated history of Russia-Ukraine relations become a fertile ground for the crisis to break out. Russia's and Ukraine's shared and disputed past(s) appeared crucial during the crisis itself: it played a key role in the attempts of Russian political elites to legitimise and to consolidate the society's support for Russia's annexation of Crimea and its military intervention in Eastern Ukraine. The fact that World War II became particularly important in this respect is widely acknowledged. However, what about the other pages of Russia's and Ukraine's (Soviet) past(s)? Were they also reconceptualised during the Ukraine crisis and employed in order to legitimise Russia's involvement? Trying to answer these questions, this article focuses on Stalinist repression, and on the specific ("official") memory of it, as was forged in Russia before the armed conflict in Ukraine broke out and as it developed during the evolution of the conflict. Questioning the concept of re-Stalinisation which is often used to analyse the memory of the repression in contemporary Russia, this article argues that in the wake of the Ukraine crisis - much like in the run-up to it - Russia is moving towards forgetting the repression. The pursuit of (national) unity - at the expense of memory of the repression - remains characteristic for Russia's "official" account of Stalinism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the collective memory of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and the degree to which it depends on the memory of, and nostalgia for, communist leader Joseph Stalin and the political apparatus of the Soviet Union. Topics include the 1992 trial of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), an analysis of the trial's constitutional aspects as they relate to criminality in the Soviet era, and its impact on the nostalgia for the Soviet Union.

The article discusses the ideas of remembering and forgetting in relation to attitudes towards Stalinism after the fall of the Soviet Union. According to the author, the powerful body of testimony and evidence surrounding the injustices of Soviet Union premier Joseph Stalin's regime is at odds with the Russian government's attempts to rehabilitate a version of its image. It is suggested that these two ideas could not coexist without a systematic forgetting or alteration of memory in Russian society. Topics discussed include totalitarianism, public spaces, and affective states such as terror and paranoia.