Between Official Ideologemes and Traumatic Experience: Perceptions of the Civil War

Abstract

In this article, the author considers the formation of ideas about the Civil War during the 1920s–1930s. The theoretical and methodological framework of the work, on the one hand, consists of publications disclosing the concept of cultural trauma and, on the other hand, of works whose authors emphasize the dynamic character of cultural memory. The author refers to literary and cinematographic works also using materials from the media and textbooks. The analysis of the sources based on the theoretical and methodological framework leads to the following conclusions. The scheme of describing the Civil War formed in the first decades of Soviet rule defined the grammar and axiology of its interpretation. The discourse of heroism contrasts with that of traumatisation. By declaring the participants in the Civil War heroes, Soviet ideologists levelled the tragedy that accompanied the event. However, some literary works also reflected the tragic experience, which could further act as the basis for the language of description and comprehension of the Civil War. The shift in value priorities towards the absolutisation of the cult of the state and the victorious idea of 1000 years of history and the actualisation of the patriotic rhetoric in the 1930s laid the foundations for a relatively conventional image of the Civil War.