Russian Studies in Culture and Society (Jun 2022)
NATIONAL CINEMA AS A FORM OF IDENTITY VISUALIZATION IN HISTORICAL MEMORY CULTURE OF THE REPUBLIC OF SAKHA (YAKUTIA) IN THE 2010S AND THE EARLY 2020S
Abstract
The purpose of the article is to analyze the politics of memory as a broad system of cultural practices and communications in modern Yakutia in the context of the development of cinema as a segment of national identity. The author analyzes the role of historical politics in the development of national memory and identity in the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia in the context of the visuality of modern culture. Methodologically, the article is based on the principles proposed in the memorial and visual turns, which significantly changed the vectors of memory studies, actualizing the principles of interdisciplinarity. The novelty of the study lies in the analysis of common and unique features of the functioning of visual dimensions in the politics of memory in Yakutia. The article analyzes 1) visualization strategies of memorial culture, 2) modern Yakut films as elements of modern mnemonic space, 3) the role of visual practices in the development of the memorial canon. The article presents a broad understanding of the historical politics of memory. The author believes that the politics of memory should not be limited only to the activity of specialized institutions and professional politicians who manipulate the facts of the past to solve the problems of the ruling elites. In this article, the politics of memory is analyzed through the prism of national cinema, perceived as one of the forms of constructing images of the past. National cinema, in the context of the politics of memory, solves tasks similar to the same ones of institutionalized actors, but does it by different methods. Therefore, in this article the impact of historical politics to the development of national identity is shown through the prism of the culture of memory and the memorial canon. The results of the study suggest that representatives of the Yakut national intelligentsia are the main actors in historical politics because they construct memorial culture contexts of collective memory visualization. It is assumed that visual forms of memory complement the traditional narrative-discursive strategies for constructing images of the past in the Yakut identity and common mnemonic space.
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