TheNamedniproject and the evolution of nostalgia in post-Soviet Russia

Beyond nostalgia for the Soviet past: Interpreting documentaries on Russian television

“…This nostalgia is often understood as a negative social development that leads to a distorted and simplified portrayal of a highly contested past (Ivanova, 2002). In this way, nostalgia has become an evaluative category used to describe televised content, political affiliations and the cultural preferences of media producers and audiences, despite the existence of different understandings of nostalgic experiences and the term nostalgia itself (Abramov and Chestiakova, 2012; Gorbachev, 2015; Mazur, 2015).…”

“…In Russian and Eastern and Central European contexts, nostalgia has been conceptualised as a specifically post-socialist reaction to market changes, capitalist values and globalisation, as well as a utopian longing for solidarity and a fair and equal society (Enns, 2007; Godeanu-Kenworthy, 2011; Lee, 2011; Todorova and Gille, 2010; Velikonja, 2009). It was and often still is treated negatively as a revisionist project to rewrite history in an entertaining way, but one which widens the gap to actual traumatic history (Abramov and Chestiakova, 2012; Gorbachev, 2015; Ivanova, 2002; Novikova and Dulo, 2011; Zorkaia, 2010). Nostalgia is believed by some to encourage consumerist attitudes nurturing what Svetlana Boym (2001) calls ‘restorative’ nostalgia for the Soviet period – nostalgia that aims to reconstruct a lost home, often in association with nationalist revivals.…”

“…Among such programmes were Stariy Televisor (‘The Old TV Set’, Lev Novozhenov, Dmitry Dibrov, 1997–2001, NTV) and Namedni: Nasha Era 1960–1991 (‘Recently: Our Era 1960–1991’, Leonid Parfenov, 1997–2000, NTV Channel). Despite criticism by the academic community of the latter show (Abramov and Chestiakova, 2012; Gorbachev, 2015) for its overtly ironic and nostalgic representation of the Soviet era, the programme actually highlighted an important issue: the cultural identity of the people born and raised in the USSR and their attitude to the country and system they were raised in. The programme demonstrated that people were occupied with the pursuit of their private lives and tried to find ways to avoid the official discourses of the state.…”

“…The decisive moment in finding an ideological ground for symbolic politics happened at the beginning of Putin’s second term (2004–2008), when, in his annual address to the Federal Assembly, he described the collapse of the USSR as the ‘biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century’ (Putin, 2005). Such a framing of the dissolution of the USSR allowed both media and scholars to point out the presence of nostalgic, utopian, restorative tones in the president’s rhetoric (Gorbachev, 2015: 184).…”

“The Moscow Miracle”: a Representation of the “Nineties” in the TV Program “Namedni”

“…Несмотря на эту особенность, репрезентация 90-х в передаче «Намедни» до настоящего времени оставалась за пределами внимания исследователей. Существующие работы посвящены ностальгическому прочтению советской и позднесоветской истории в фильмах Парфенова [Gorbachev, 2015;Абрамов, Чистякова, 2012], мы же предлагаем сконцентрироваться на описании фильмов как на одной из форм политики памяти по отношению к образу «девяностых». Изучение репрезентации «девяностых» в фильмах Парфенова позволит отследить механизм конструирования памяти о «девяностых» с позиции условно «либеральной».…”