Performing Memory in Conflicting Settings: Russian Immigrants and the Remembrance of World War II in Finland

Davydova-Minguet, Olga

doi:10.1177/0888325420956697

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Sotakuolemien muistaminen yhteisön nimissä tehtyinä uhrauksina on tavanomaisesti valikoivaa ja konsensushakuista kansallisen yhtenäisyyden lisäämiseksi sekä armeijan toimia ja sitä kautta weberiläistä valtioiden väkivaltamonopolia legitimoivaa 4 . Kansakuntakeskeiset sotakokemukset ovat korostuneet esimerkiksi historian oppikirjoissa 5 , populaarikulttuurissa 6 , muistamisen politiikassa 7 , ja uusien sotilaallisten konfliktien perusteluissa 8 .…”

Section: Sotilaskuolemat Mediatapahtuminaunclassified

Suuri isänmaallinen, muttei sota: sotilaskuolemien diskursiivinen mediatapahtuma Venäjän Karjalassa

Oivo

2023

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Kaatuneiden sotilaiden julkinen muistaminen sankareina on maailmanlaajuinen ilmiö. Venäjällä sotilaskuolemien esittäminen pohjautuu voimakkaisiin julkisen keskustelun rajoituksiin mediateknologioiden läpi kuultamassa yhteiskunnassa sekä jyrkkään erotukseen virallisesti tunnustettujen ja kiistettyjen kuolemien välillä. Helmikuussa 2022 Venäjän Ukrainaa kohtaan aloittaman hyökkäyssodan seurauksena venäläisviranomaiset alkoivat aiemmasta poiketen julkaista tietoa sotilaidensa kuolemista, kuitenkin tarkkaan valikoituna. Sotilaiden paluu sinkkiarkuissa rikkoi arkirutiinia heidän kotiseuduillaan, tuoden kaukaisten ja vaikeasti käsitettävien tapahtumien seuraukset paikalliseen todellisuuteen. Valtiovallan ehdoilla toimivat uutismediat yrittivät saada sotilaskuolemat näyttämään hyväksyttäviltä ja yksitulkintaisilta. Tämä artikkeli avaa diskurssianalyysin avulla sotilaskuolemien esityksen ehdollisuuksia, (epä-)jatkumoita ja merkityksiä Venäjällä Karjalan tasavallan aluemediassa. Vaikka näiden kuolemien merkityksellisyys perustettiin kohtalokkaaseen konfliktiin, itse mediatapahtuma rakentui vaikeaselkoisen kaukaisen kuolinpaikan sijasta sotilaiden kotialueille ja Karjalaan. Hyväksyttävän ja tarpeellisen kuoleman diskurssi rakentui Venäjällä pitkään tuotetun ja jopa pyhäksi luonnehditun ”suuren isänmaallisen sodan” (1941–1945) uhrautuvan sankaruuden muistamisen perustalle. Tämän voi nähdä osin ristiriitaisena kollektiivisesta muistista marginalisoiduille sotilaskuolemille, joita on arvioitu olleen lukuisia myös vuonna 2022. Public commemoration of fallen soldiers as heroes is a global phenomenon. In Russia, the public representation of military deaths is based on strong restrictions on public discussions, and the sharp difference between officially recognised and controversial deaths. In February 2022, following the offensive war in Ukraine in Ukraine, Russian authorities began to selectively publish information on the deaths of their soldiers. Soldiers' return in zinc coffins disrupted the everyday lives in their home regions, bringing the consequences of distant and difficult events to local reality. Following the terms of the authorities, news media companies tried to make military deaths look acceptable and univocal. This article examines discursivity of military deaths, their conditions, (dis-)continuities, and meanings in the regional media of the Republic of Karelia in Russia. Although the significance of these deaths was established in a fatal conflict, the media event itself was constructed in the soldiers' home regions instead of the place of death. The representations of acceptable and necessary death were based on the nationally established sacrificial heroism in the "Great Patriotic War" (1941-1945). This embedded contradictions with the estimations of numerous Russian military deaths that were marginalised from the public commemoration in 2022.

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Section: Sotilaskuolemat Mediatapahtuminaunclassified

Suuri isänmaallinen, muttei sota: sotilaskuolemien diskursiivinen mediatapahtuma Venäjän Karjalassa

Oivo

2023

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“…One example are the Immortal Regiment marches (Arkhipova et al 2017; Fedor 2017). These popular marches were first organized to mark Victory Day in 2012 and take place today across the country and abroad (Davydova-Minguet 2021). Whereas the first Immortal Regiment marches consisted of the display of portraits of family members who fought during World War II, they are increasingly a demonstration of patriotism and militarism.…”

Section: Framing the War For Young Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

A Foundation for Russia? Memories of World War II for Young Russians

Krawatzek

Frieß

2022

Nationalities Papers

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How do young Russians relate to World War II and the violence of the wartime period? This article explores the degree to which societal and elite-driven narratives about history converge in the context of a crucial historical anniversary. We demonstrate that the memory of World War II serves as an integrative historical event for an abstract, temporally transcendent idea of Russia. Our analysis draws on focus groups conducted among young people of different political orientation in June 2019, survey data targeting urban youth, conducted over three consecutive years (2018–2020), and cultural artifacts such as film and literature. There is significant overlap between the views that young people express about victory and commemoration and the prevailing cultural, political, educational, and historical discourses. However, there is significant controversy when it comes to the actual ways in which the current political regime remembers the victory, the role of Stalin, and how to understand violence against the civilian population. The shared historical view that the Putin regime has created therefore remains contested. Disagreement limits the extent to which memory can be a foundation for today’s political Russia as young respondents differentiate between their support for an abstract ideal of Russia and the existing political system.

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“…Some minorities, such as the Jewish, because of the atrocities of World War II, are not present in numbers large enough to challenge the narratives about them, 3 whilst the Russian minority in Finland is able to challenge Finnish national narratives about World War II through the support of the kin-state of Russia. 4 With limited guarantees of domestic state support for cultural reproduction, therefore, how do ethnic minorities ensure their survival in east-Central europe? More specifically, how does the past figure in the minorities' present-day quests for survival?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking to the Past to Survive the Future: The Hungarian Minority in Slovakia

Divald

2021

East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures

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This article belongs to the special cluster, “Here to Stay: The Politics of History in Eastern Europe”, guest-edited by Félix Krawatzek & George Soroka. With reference to the Hungarian minority’s overarching concern over its declining population in Slovakia, this article reveals how different elements of the past are activated, remembered, and renegotiated to ensure the minority’s cultural survival. Using elite interviews, party documents, and a detailed analysis of two local newspaper archives in Hungarian, I unpack how memory and politics interact in the post-EU accession period. First, I uncover how political and civil society actors use acts of commemoration as a conduit to circulate certain narratives of the Hungarian minority identity. Through remembering historic Hungarian leaders and events, elites affirm and construct the minority identity, thus enabling its cultural reproduction. The Habsburg and Austro-Hungarian Monarchy period is referred to most frequently with the celebration of national heroes. Events spanning the twentieth century are generally mourned as painful and detrimental for the Hungarian minority. While the acts of commemoration are “soft” measures to ensure cultural survival, Hungarian political actors also desire “hard” guarantees through institutional measures, best encapsulated by their desire for autonomy arrangements. However, the Slovak nation’s own past of claiming autonomy and their eventual secession from Czechoslovakia in 1939 conditions the cultural rules around language and the appropriate vocabulary that Hungarian elites can use. Consequently, Hungarian minority elites appropriate the past strategically in two ways. They readjust their tactics through using different vocabulary to claim autonomy and second, they pursue policy reforms across areas such as education and regional development, thus making the de facto possibility of autonomy more palatable to their Slovak counterparts.

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Performing Memory in Conflicting Settings: Russian Immigrants and the Remembrance of World War II in Finland

Cited by 6 publications

References 9 publications

Suuri isänmaallinen, muttei sota: sotilaskuolemien diskursiivinen mediatapahtuma Venäjän Karjalassa

Suuri isänmaallinen, muttei sota: sotilaskuolemien diskursiivinen mediatapahtuma Venäjän Karjalassa

A Foundation for Russia? Memories of World War II for Young Russians

Looking to the Past to Survive the Future: The Hungarian Minority in Slovakia

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