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

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the memory of the 1990s in Russia. The main purpose is to determine the significance of television documentary films, namely the television project “Namedni”, in the process of shaping the memory of Russians about the initial stage of post-Soviet Russia. The episodes of the program “Namedni”, devoted to the period from 1990 to 1999, have been analyzed. The qualitative content analysis of the series was conducted on the basis of the thematic categories: politics, social sphere, economy, culture (sports) and the subject criteria: story title, content, timing, personalities and key details, as well as the organization of the story. The predominantly negative perception of the period of the “nineties” in Russia is not confirmed in the episodes of the program “Namedni”. Political and economic themes predominate in most of the episodes, and the 1990s are presented as an optimistic “era of change”, symbolizing a fleeting transition from the old to a potentially positive and bright new. The ambiguity of the positive image of the 1990s is determined by the low attention of the authors of the program to the events of the regional scale, most of the subjects refer to either global or the capital city events of the past.