Nino Chikovani
PhD in History
Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
Professor
Tbilisi, Georgia
Nino Chikovani
PhD in History
Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
Professor
Tbilisi, Georgia
Heroes and Anti-heroes in the Process of Constructing a "New Memory"
Abstract
The paper aims to explore the process of formation and institutionalization of heroes and anti-heroes in the last years of the Soviet Union and the first decade of independence. This was the period of transition from the collapsed Soviet system to a new, still unclear reality. In the period of transition, it becomes important to reconstruct the collective memory following the new goals of the country, and to create the "new past" for the "new future". New national heroes appear, who provide models of honour and heroism, and inspire hope and courage in contemporaries and descendants. Images of heroes are social and cultural constructions, their significance changes according to historical period and context.
Perestroika significantly weakened prohibitions and restrictions imposed by the Soviet system. Politics of “glasnost” revealed previously unknown or almost forgotten facts of history. The past - one of the most important markers of collective identity – appeared in the focus of public attention. The process of taking revenge on the past (P.Nora) and active forgetting (A.Assmann) started. Heroes of the Soviet era were falling from material as well as symbolic pedestals. New heroes and symbols took their place. The paper examines concrete facts that reflect the process of creating a new image of the past and forming a new memory based on this image. Transformation of the most important places of memory into the symbols of new identity is presented, in which the main role was played by various manifestations of the conflict between "old" and "new" heroes.
Empirical material (monuments, memorials, political statements, textual sources) is analyzed within the framework of the theory of collective memory, which allows us to identify specific figures who become heroes/anti-heroes in the period of transition; their meanings changed, and they influenced developments in the country even after death. The concept of communicative and cultural memory proposed by Ian Assmann is particularly important for our research: the period under discussion remains within the temporal framework of communicative memory; its different streams are still strong, and they hotly debate the meanings assigned to various personages and perspective of their establishment in the cultural memory.
The study of the cultural framework of collective memory and cultural means through which the memory is created and maintained/revised is based on Pierre Nora's concept of sites of memory (lieux de mémoire). According to Nora, heroes/anti-heroes are sites of memory, whose institutionalization or de-institutionalization plays an important role in the process of building collective memory and identity.
Keywords: Collective memory; Heroes and anti-heroes; Post-Soviet transition; Sites of Memory, Pierre Nora's Concept of Sites of Memory.