Historical memory of the Great Patriotic War: reasons for pluralism

• Main Author: Shirokalova Galina Sergeevna
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences 2021-06-01
• Series: Вестник Института социологии
• Subjects: youth; students; world war ii; great patriotic war; historical memory; values; opportunities; russia
• Online Access: http://www.vestnik-isras.ru/files/File/Vestnik_2021_37/Shirokalova_19-35.pdf

The article analyzes the results of a sociological study of the historical memory of students about the World War II in general (and the Great Patriotic War in particular), conducted by the Russian Society of Sociologists in 2020, as well as materials from surveys of other research teams. The author comes to the conclusion that historical memory is formed, first of all, by the information field, set by state institutions or encouraged by them (school, mass media, network resources). Contradictory assessment of the events of the twentieth century led to the rupture of the historical memory of generations and the formation of a large group of people ready to accept the revision of the geopolitical results of the war from the standpoint of history falsifiers. The attitude of young people to the past, without taking into account the cause-and-effect liaison of the events of that time, is explained not only by the extinction of communicative memory for the departure of war generations, the desacralization of their life, deed, death. The range of factors is much wider. Since there is no integral picture of the history of the USSR, there is no value core for assessing events of the Great Patriotic War either. In the absence of historical hygiene in the Russian Federation, the entire Soviet period turns into historical antiques for new generations. They treat this in different ways: with reverence, condescension, aggressiveness, indifference, but it is excessive for the daily life of the majority. The slogan “If required, we repeat / can repeat”, replicated on May 9, is nothing more than a short-term emotional reaction, including to PR management, but not the readiness / mindset / promise of action in a real war. The opposition of the state to the country, that is reflected in the popular among young people song of the group Lumen, actually testifies to alienation from both the state and the country, since there is no one without the other. Questions are inevitable: how adequate are the methodologies and techniques based on which social scientists choose the range of factors that form the portrait of modern youth and predict the direction of further socialization of its individual groups? How many meaningful collaborators should there be to lose / win a civilizational battle in which historical memory is only one of the components? According to the author, the conditions and opportunities for the realization of the desired worldview values ​​in modern Russia adjust the attitude to the present and the life strategies of young people to a greater extent than historical memory.