The Internet has transformed history and collective memory. Narratives of the past are produced and perceived faster and by larger communities. In other words, the Internet facilitates the most pervasive broadcasting of historical narratives ever known. However, it is not only speed and reach that characterize the impact of the digital revolution on memory cultures. It has also led to a shift from broadcasting to narrowcasting, propelled by a growing number of online memory agents. As a great number of people have access to the Internet, even memory agents with a particular view on the past can find their audience. Thus, the Internet, and social media in particular, facilitates the fragmentation of memory and narrowcasting. To illustrate this point, I studied Russian social media groups dedicated to the adoration of Stalin. Generally, Stalinists are perceived as a homogeneous group sharing a glorified memory of the Soviet leader. However, my analysis reveals that there are at least three types of online Stalinism that promote different narratives and have different agendas. This finding is not merely shedding new light on the persistence of the Stalin cult, but is also theoretically generative, indicating additional conditions for the fragmentation of memories in countries with contested and toxic pasts.
Memory narratives commonly include characters such as heroes (triumphant or fallen), martyrs, perpetrators, and victims. In recent years, the victim has become the central character in the dominant, western-centric, and globalized memory culture. A victim’s definition is problematic: few existing memory narratives include “ideal,” or innocent victims who suffered meaninglessly. The lines between victims and other characters in memory narratives are blurry in many cases, for instance, between a victim and a perpetrator. Using the case of Russian museums dedicated to the Soviet repressions, I study the problematic relation between victims and heroes, adding to the discussion of the victim character’s complexity. Often, victims of Soviet repressions are presented as both victims of political persecution and heroes who did not just suffer through their imprisonment but continued to live productive and creative lives. The resulting victim-hero character indicates that the category of a victim is too limiting and adds to calls for the theorization of victim taxonomy.
It is often asserted that the values and attitudes of Homo Sovieticus, marked in the rising “popularity” of Stalin, live on in contemporary Russia, acting as a negative factor in social and political development. This article critiques the argument that attitudes to Stalin reflect unreformed Soviet values and explain Russia’s authoritarian regression and failed modernization. Our critique of this legacy argument has three parts. First, after examining the problematic elements of the Levada Center approach, we offer alternative explanations for understanding quantitative data on Stalin and the repressions. Second, we examine interview data showing that, for those with a pro-Stalin position, “defending Stalin” is only a small part of a broader worldview that is not obviously part of a “Soviet legacy.” Third, we consider survey data from the trudnaia-pamiat’ project and find common reluctance to discuss much of the Stalinist past, which we argue represents an agonistic stance. Thus, we interpret attitudes to Stalin within a broader context of complex social and cultural transformation where the anomie of the 1990s has been replaced with dynamics toward a more positive identity construct. On the one hand, the antagonistic mode of memory is visible in statist and patriotic discourses, which do not seriously revolve around Stalin but do resist strong criticism of him. On the other hand, we find many more in Russia avoid the Stalin question and adopt an agonistic mode, avoiding conflict through a “de-politicized” version of history.
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