Commemoration in the management practices of the Soviet elite in 1960–1970-ies (on the example of the Penza region)

Abstract

The aim of the study is to analyze the practices of commemoration and memorial culture in the Penza region in the 1960–1970-ies. The issues of periodization of development of memorial culture and historical politics, the content of collective memories, transformation of social reflection, forms and means of commemoration are considered. An assessment is made of the possibility of using the methodological tools of the «new political history» at the regional and local levels of problem development. The high source potential of materials of personal origin in the study of commemorative content in narratives, symbols and signs is noted. In the course of the analysis of historiography of the problem, a pluralism of value judgments regarding the «instrumentality» of Soviet historical policy was revealed. Conclusions are drawn about the need for an objective analysis of national specifics, including in relation to the memory of the past, in the search for universal content in the structures of memorial culture. The evolution of functionality and content of historical politics in the 1960–1970-ies is traced: the general trend of the process is the decline in interest in the symbolic practices of the revolutionary era and the establishment of a new «organizing» idea as a manifestation of social demand for solidarity and common identity. The memory of the victims of the struggle for Soviet power as a tool of legitimization is giving way to socially significant experiences (memory of the Great Patriotic War) and the idea of restoring the unity of memory, a tolerant attitude towards the past as a whole, which united both the imperial and Soviet heritage. The factor of traumatic order is the memory of Stalin. The period under review also saw the institutionalization of the system of socio-political interaction in the field of memorial culture.