Роль культурной памяти в конструировании коллективной идентичности

Abstract

Analyzed are collective identification processes that occur in conjunction with complicated, contradictory processes of glocalization, cultural exchange, emancipation of minorities, national liberation movements, etc. The paper aims to study the collective identity construction in the modern society, using the framework of cultural memory. Links between collective memory and collective identity are theoretically considered; the methodology of “imagined communities” is proposed to explore the collective memory as a resource of social integration. The article argues that the nation state is no longer the dominant basis for identity. Nowadays collectives require a shared memory of the past as the basis for social identity. The paper focuses on a high symbolic value of a remembering history, especially of a cultural trauma. The culturally constructed trauma can appear on the level of groups, and provide integration of community, based on victimization of the past. Thus, the collective traumatic memory can develop a negative collective identity, based on common traumatic experiences. Viewed from “imagined communities” perspective, social trauma is a part of politics of memory that becomes the politics of identity. Using results of sociological research, we distinguish three different versions of memorial paradigm, i.e. oblivion, displacement, and evocation. Such differentiation allows to argue that communities could manage their collective memory as a resource of social identification, and consequently integration.