Cultural Assessment of Commemorative Practices: Methodological Aspects

Abstract

This article explores the theoretical-methodological and instrumental-methodical foundations of contemporary professional cultural assessment of commemorative practices. Today cultural expert assessment is an indispensable tool to interpret various objects and processes, as well as providing practical advice. Cultural assessment is in demand due to the increasing complexity of contemporary cultural processes. Memory practices constitute a highly relevant, ubiquitous and important part of this cultural production. Cultural examination of commemorative practices is carried out on two main levels – the institutional and security level (identification, description, classification, protection of monuments and memorial culture) and cultural (the study of the causes and of the inner mechanisms of the development of memorial processes, forms of their objectification, identification of trends in their development, their socio-cultural and functional capacity etc.). The second level, which the main content of this article, is implemented within several levels: methodological, empirical, procedural, interpretative and symbolic, analytical.
 Keywords: assessment, cultural assessment, past, memory, cultural memory, commemoration, commemorative practices.