Дискурс Пи (Feb 2020)
Recreation cemeteries: culture of remembrance and politics of memory in the parks of the Middle Urals
Abstract
The article is devoted to the implementation and trends of the state politics of memory in modern Russia. The authors used the parks and squares of the cities of the Middle Urals as the research material. The purpose of the article is to reveal the transformation of parks and squares under the influence of the Russian state politics of memory. The authors reconstructed the history of parks and squares in the Middle Urals of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods to achieve the goal of the article. Historical and cultural processes are considered in the aspect of distancing memorial objects from parks or aggressive penetration into them. Key stages in the history of parks and squares are highlighted: 1) the early Soviet stage (1920-1930s) gave rise to the first memorial objects and places of memory in the spirit of the plan of monumental propaganda, which appeared after the revolution; 2)the post-war stage (the second half of the 1940s - the early 1950s) gave rise to the myth of war and its realization in politics of memory; 3) the late Soviet stage (the second half of the 1960s - the first half of the 1980s) is associated with the heyday of the myth of war and a largescale campaign to perpetuate the victory; 4) the post-Soviet stage (from the early 2000s to the present), activated the politics of memory. Modern Russian politics of memory has included a reanimated Soviet myth of war, as well as spawned new memorial cults and commemorative practices. The study led to the following conclusions: the commemorative function of parks and squares in the Middle Urals impairs the recreational function. Parks and squares become places of commemoration as a result of the implementation of the modern state politics of memory. This situation creates the basis for future conflicts between different groups of park visitors. In addition, memorial objects and areas around them are perceived as free from development of the territory, and the size of these symbolic zones is highly subjective. This creates difficulties for modernizing the spaces of parks and squares. At the same time, the presence of memorial objects in parks and squares acts as a kind of guarantee of their preservation, because it protects parks and squares of development and destruction.
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