Идентичность и политика постсоветской памяти
Identity and Politics of Post-Soviet Memory

Summary/Abstract: An article focuses on the symbolical politics highly characteristic for the post-Soviet world. An arrival of democracy to the post-Soviet Russia was accompanied by a collapse of the Soviet Great Narrative, which was replaced by alternative histories. The latter were represented by numerous regional and ethnic views of the past developed by local intellectuals (writers, journalists, historians, educationalists). Many of those views were constructed within the post-modern politics of memory and were aimed at the positive representation of the regional populations or particular territories. The author argues that this "invention of the past" involved not only various non-Russian ethnic groups but ethnic Russians as well. He demonstrates how the Russianness is viewed and represented in the historical myths developed by the provincial intellectuals. He also provides case studies that demonstrate intensive historical wars represented by erection and destruction of historical monuments and a replacement of place-names in the post-Soviet environment. He discusses a paradoxical co-existence of Soviet and post-Soviet memories as well.

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