.jpg)
printParadoxes of Memory of the Recent Past:
USSR Under Brezhnev, Russia Under Yeltsin and Putin in Perception of the Current Generation of Russians
Latov Yu.V.,
Leading Researcher, Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Professor, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics; Principal Researcher, Academy of Management of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, latov@mail.ru
elibrary_id: 152966 | ORCID: 0000-0001-7566-4192 | RESEARCHER_ID: P-7344-2016
DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2018.05.10
Rubric: Russia Today
For citation:
Latov Yu.V. Paradoxes of Memory of the Recent Past: USSR Under Brezhnev, Russia Under Yeltsin and Putin in Perception of the Current Generation of Russians. – Polis. Political Studies. 2018. No. 5. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2018.05.10
Abstract
Respondents (during a nationwide survey in October 2017) were asked to compare the Soviet Union under Brezhnev, a post-Soviet Russia of the time of Yeltsin and modern Russia in order to study what Russians think of their country’s recent past. The analysis of the data of this survey showed that the image of the recent past is built in the public consciousness on the model of a steep turn (roller-coaster). Russians believe that over the past 40 years there has been a transition from “excellent” life in the Brezhnev Soviet Union to “bad” in Yeltsin Russia, and then to “satisfactory” in modern Russia. This historical memory is paradoxical in many respects: it caricaturally hyperbolizes real trends, creating a “white legend” about the Brezhnev Soviet Union and a “black legend” about Yeltsin Russia. The author formulates several approaches to the explanation of revealed paradoxes of historical memory of Russians. On the basis of the data on property and age differentiation of estimates of those epochs, the most correct seems to be the concept, according to which the mythologization of the past is a form of the test moods of the most deprived social groups (elderly and poor). At the same time, both the pro-government “historical policy” and the cognitive effect of asymmetry in the perception of benefits and losses could have a strong impact on the folding of the steep turn model.
Keywords
historical collective memory; the mythologization of the past; social differentiation; politics of memory; bounded rationality.
References
Anikina M.U., Khrul V.M. Memories about the Brezhnev Era in the Opinion Polls and Auto Texts of Mass Consciousness. – Mediascope. 2010. No 3. P. 9. (In Russ.).
Barash R. Otnoshenie rossiyan k sovetskomu proshlomu: postpamyat’ ili zapros na budushchee? [The Attitude of Russians to the Soviet past: Post-Memory or a Request for the Future?]. – Rossiiskoe obshchestvo i vyzovy vremeni [Russian Society and the Challenges of Time]. Book 5. Ed. by M.K. Gorshkov, V.V. Petukhov. Moscow: Ves Mir Publishers. 2017. P. 253-270. (In Russ.)
Dubin B. Rossiya nulevykh: politicheskaya kul’tura, istoricheskaya pamyat’, povsednevnaya zhizn’ [Russia Zero: Political Culture, Historical Memory, Everyday Life]. Moscow: ROSSPEN. 2011. 391 p. (In Russ.)
Dvadtsat’ let reform glazami rossiyan: opyt mnogoletnikh sotsiologicheskikh zamerov [Twenty Years of Reforms Through the Eyes of Russians: the Experience of Long-Term Sociological Measurements]. Ed. by M.K. Gorshkov, R. Krumm, V.V. Petuhov. Moscow: Ves Mir Publishers. 2011. 328 p. (In Russ.)
Ekonomicheskie sub”ekty postsovetskoi Rossii (institutsional’nyi analiz) [Economic Subjects of Post-Soviet Russia (Institutional Analysis)]. Ed. by R.M. Nureyev. Moscow: MONF. 2001. 804 p. (In Russ.)
Gorshkov M.K., Petukhov V.V. The October Revolution of 1917 and Its Aftermath in the Public Perception of Modern Russians (Experience in Sociological Measuring). – Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya. 2018. No. 1. Р. 6-18. (In Russ.).
Kahneman D., Tversky A. Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk. – Econometrica. XVLII. 1979. P. 263-292. (In Russ.)
Kertman G. The Era of Brezhnev – in the Haze of the Present. – Sotsial’naya real’nost’. 2007. No. 2. P. 5-22. (In Russ.) URL: http://www.perspektivy.info/print.php?ID=35838 (accessed 14.07.2018).
Malinova O.Yu. Commemoration of Historical Events as Instrument of Symbolic Policy: Possibilities of Comparative Analysis. – Politeia. 2017. No. 4 (87). P. 6-22. (In Russ.)
Malinova O.Yu. The Commemoration in Russia of the Centenary of the 1917 Revolution(s): Analysis of Strategies of the Key Mnemonic Actors. – Polis. Political Studies. 2018. No. 1. P. 9-25 (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2018.01.02
Malinova O.Yu. The Commemoration in Russia of the Centenary of the 1917 Revolution(s): Comparative Analysis of Rival Narratives. – Polis. Political Studies. 2018. No. 2. P. 37-56 (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2018.02.04
Miller A. Russia: Power and History. – Pro et Contra. 2009. No 3-4. P. 6-23. (In Russ.)
Nova li novaya Rossiya? Peremeny v sotsial’noi strukture obshchestva i sotsial’nom vosproizvodstve rossiyan po materialam oprosov 1994-2013 gg. [Is There a New Russia? Changes in the Social Structure of Society and the Social Reproduction of Russians on the Basis of Surveys Conducted in 1994-2013]. Ed. by O. Shkaratan, G. Yastrebov. Moscow: The University Book. 2016. 400 p. (In Russ.)
Nureev R.M., Latov Yu.V. Ekonomicheskaya istoriya Rossii. Opyt institutsional'nogo analiza [The Economic History of Russia. Experience of Institutional Analysis]. Мoscow: Knorus. 2017. 268 p. (In Russ.) Shnirelman V.A. Voiny pamyati: mify, identichnost’ i politika v Zakavkaz’e [The Memory War: Myths,
Identity and Politics in Transcaucasia]. Moscow: Academic Book. 2003. 601 p. (In Russ.) Shubin A.V. Zolotaya osen’, ili Period zastoya. SSSR v 1975-985 gg. [Golden Autumn, or the Period of Stagnation. USSR in 1975-1985 Years]. Moscow: Veche. 2008. 347 p. (In Russ.)
Travin D., Gelman V., Zaostrovtsev A. Rossiiskii put’: Idei, Interesy, Instituty, Illyuzii [The Russian Way: Ideas, Interests, Institutes, Illusions]. St. Petersburg: EUSP Press. 2017. 302 p. (In Russ.)
Yudin G.B., Khlevnyuk D.O., Maksimova A.S., Farkhatdinov N.G., Rozhansky M.Ya., Vasileva E.Yu. Kakoe proshloe nuzhno budushchemu Rossii? Analiticheskii otchet po sotsiologicheskomu issledovani- yu v ramkakh doklada Vol’nogo istoricheskogo obshchestva [What Past Does Russia Need in the Future? Analytical Report on Sociological Research as Part of the Report of the Free Historical Society]. Moscow. 2017. 109 p. (In Russ.) URL: https://komitetgi.ru/service/%D0%A1%D0%BE%D1%86%D0%B8%D0% BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BB.pdf (accessed 14.07.2018).
Zaslavskaya T.I. Transformatsionnyi protsess v Rossii. V poiskakh novoi metodologii [Transformation Process in Russia. In the Claims of the New Methodology]. – Zaslavskaya T.I. Izbrannye proizvedeniya [Selected Works]. Vol. 2. Moscow: Economics. 2007. 591 р. (In Russ.)
Content No. 5, 2018
See also:
Korotetskaya L.V.,
Particular features of the intellectual patriotic discourse in Germany of the 1990s. – Polis. Political Studies. 2012. No1
Artamonov D.S, Tikhonova S.V.,
Memory policy on the Internet memes: from visualization of history to fakes. – Polis. Political Studies. 2022. No5
Zarubina N.N., Noskova A.V.,
Images of Russia: Reflecting on the Eras of Change. – Polis. Political Studies. 2019. No2
Popkov Yu.V.,
On archaization in social transformations. – Polis. Political Studies. 2015. No1
Malakhov V.S., Letnyakov D.E.,
The collapse of hegemonial normality: migration and the politics of memory in the U.S., UK and France. – Polis. Political Studies. 2023. No1
.jpg)
.jpg)