Practices of urban commemoration: features of the city cultural memory formation

From the standpoint of the cultural approach, the cultural memory of the city is a complex space for storing, transmitting and updating the cultural meanings of the city (events, dates, legends, myths, famous personalities, places, etc.). The scientific interest in its research is explained by the fact that the cultural memory of the city is a symbolic resource capable of determining the urban reality, identifying the present and future of the city. The presence of current and potential layers gives the cultural memory of the city the property of mobility, which makes it necessary to artificial support the city cultural meanings and, on the contrary, opens up the possibility to update their repertoire in the urban space. This function is performed by the practice of urban commemoration as a means of forming the cultural memory of the city. Since the cultural memory of the city is a socio-cultural construct, therefore, the role of urban commemoration increases, which, through the actualization of episodes of the past, determines what to remember and how to perceive cultural meanings. The identification and analysis of urban commemoration practices can be carried out on the basis of studying the specifics and conditions of broadcasting commemorative information, through an interdisciplinary synthesis of available fragmentary studies. Thus, a variety of urban commemoration practices should be presented using the following typology: a) visual and verbal practices; b) emotional and cognitive practices; c) institutional practices; d) performative practices; e) symbolic practices. Separately, it is necessary to highlight the practices of urban commemoration, which purposefully shape the cultural memory of the city and are directly related to the memorial culture of the city, which sets the contours of the social policy of memory. The general condition of commemorative practices is communication, which provides the process of structuring cultural memory itself. It is in the process of communication that symbolic marking of the cultural meanings of the city is carried out through the transformation of individual memories into collective ones, as well as through the cultivation of the city memory fragments (actual or latent). In the era of the information society, a special communicative role belongs to the media as a powerful generator of cultural meanings that accumulates commemorative practices. Becoming a part of the media field, a fragment of cultural memory can acquire a certain value, become famous, get a peculiar assessment and interpretation. The presented typology of practices of urban commemoration and the revealed features of their representation in the urban environment are primary in nature and are an attempt to unite separate studies into a single continuum, thus creating the conditions for a comprehensive understanding of the mechanism of the city cultural memory formation.

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