“…This celebratory tendency can be observed even today. In her insightful essay on Russian propaganda in contemporary war films, historian Olga Kucherenko (2011) writes that:…”
Section: Cultural Factorsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…This celebratory tendency can be observed even today. In her insightful essay on Russian propaganda in contemporary war films, historian Olga Kucherenko (2011) writes that: In the frigid, increasingly militaristic cultural climate, where the war cult occupies a hegemonic position, these films, among other media, serve as a means of reaching out to the young and attempting to control their presumably destructive energies. In order to do so, producers of these features pay homage to the best heroic traditions of the official Soviet “historiophoty”….…”
Various manifestations of intergenerational memory transmission have been discussed in many scientific fields. Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to these phenomena in the context of dreams. Yet, the sphere of dreaming seems the most informative illustration of how the tragic past influenced the second and third‐generation descendants of trauma survivors. Based on my talks with two descendants of WWII survivors—a Russian woman and a Polish man—I define “postmemory dreams” as night visions affected by cultural representations of historical events. The theoretical background of my study is Hirsch's concept of postmemory, Hall's continuity hypothesis of dreaming, and anthropological dream research. Postmemory dreams reflect and are shaped by the ethos of remembering and commemorating the war—the ethos often imposed by political forces and propaganda—in which the dreamers live. In the cases of my interviewees, these are the Polish ethos of victimhood and the Russian ethos of heroism.
“…This celebratory tendency can be observed even today. In her insightful essay on Russian propaganda in contemporary war films, historian Olga Kucherenko (2011) writes that:…”
Section: Cultural Factorsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…This celebratory tendency can be observed even today. In her insightful essay on Russian propaganda in contemporary war films, historian Olga Kucherenko (2011) writes that: In the frigid, increasingly militaristic cultural climate, where the war cult occupies a hegemonic position, these films, among other media, serve as a means of reaching out to the young and attempting to control their presumably destructive energies. In order to do so, producers of these features pay homage to the best heroic traditions of the official Soviet “historiophoty”….…”
Various manifestations of intergenerational memory transmission have been discussed in many scientific fields. Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to these phenomena in the context of dreams. Yet, the sphere of dreaming seems the most informative illustration of how the tragic past influenced the second and third‐generation descendants of trauma survivors. Based on my talks with two descendants of WWII survivors—a Russian woman and a Polish man—I define “postmemory dreams” as night visions affected by cultural representations of historical events. The theoretical background of my study is Hirsch's concept of postmemory, Hall's continuity hypothesis of dreaming, and anthropological dream research. Postmemory dreams reflect and are shaped by the ethos of remembering and commemorating the war—the ethos often imposed by political forces and propaganda—in which the dreamers live. In the cases of my interviewees, these are the Polish ethos of victimhood and the Russian ethos of heroism.
“…Russian cities have official programs of celebrations to mark Victory Day. Modern movies dedicated to the Great Patriotic War aim to educate younger people about the heroic acts of the war generation (Kucherenko, 2011). School education also makes its mark: current Russian textbooks cover the Great Patriotic War in depth (Brandenberger, 2009).…”
Section: Like My Stalin: Types Of Stalin Vk Groupsmentioning
The Internet has transformed history and collective memory. Narratives of the past are produced and perceived faster and by larger communities. In other words, the Internet facilitates the most pervasive broadcasting of historical narratives ever known. However, it is not only speed and reach that characterize the impact of the digital revolution on memory cultures. It has also led to a shift from broadcasting to narrowcasting, propelled by a growing number of online memory agents. As a great number of people have access to the Internet, even memory agents with a particular view on the past can find their audience. Thus, the Internet, and social media in particular, facilitates the fragmentation of memory and narrowcasting. To illustrate this point, I studied Russian social media groups dedicated to the adoration of Stalin. Generally, Stalinists are perceived as a homogeneous group sharing a glorified memory of the Soviet leader. However, my analysis reveals that there are at least three types of online Stalinism that promote different narratives and have different agendas. This finding is not merely shedding new light on the persistence of the Stalin cult, but is also theoretically generative, indicating additional conditions for the fragmentation of memories in countries with contested and toxic pasts.
“…As Russian scholars have asserted, the foundational myth of victory in the Great Patriotic War is essential to the Russian understanding of self (Gudkov 2005;Fofanova and Morozov 2009). It is the narrative that students are required to know well enough to pass the state examination, but it is also the narrative that provides social cohesion and national identity (Kucherenko 2011). That is, it is a past that provides context and meaning to the present.…”
Using data from fieldwork conducted in late 2009, this paper examines the Russian educational sphere and initiatives by the political elite to control and manipulate textbook content, testing objectives, and the structuring of curricula in order to maximize exposure to, and absorption of, its preferred narratives. Using a more detailed critical analysis of textbook content, I show that methods of discursive manipulation are used to highlight positive aspects of the Stalinist period -especially victory in World War II -while downplaying its political repression. This manipulation allows the state to both legitimize its version of Stalinist history and to perpetuate the underlying legitimizing function that version serves. In this way, the discourse implicitly justifies Putin's centralized state as the type of system that has historically produced great achievements for Russia. This article adds to the literature on the manipulation of educational content for political purposes generally, and in the case of Russia specifically.
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