Bricolage of Novosibirsk Akademgorodok Museum Narratives: How Collective Memory Actors Work at the Middle Level

The study was supported by the grant of the Russian Federation Government (project № 075-15-2021-611), "Human and the Changing Space of the Urals and Siberia" and the grant of the President of the Russian Federation for Young Scientists Candidates of Sciences, № MK-862.2022.2 "Nature and Science Spaces of Siberian Academic Towns: Models and Prospects (second half of XX - XXI centuries)". The article is devoted to the collective memory of Novosibirsk Akademgorodok in the museum narratives of academic research institutes and local communities. The authors studied and compared the historical narratives of 13 local memorial complexes. The instrument for comparison is the assumption of the historical "general narrative" in Akademgorodok, associated with the figure of academician Lavrentiev and referring to the golden age of the sixties of the XX century. The degree of presence of the "general narrative" in museum exhibitions, as well as forms of its use demonstrated the ways of museums and their organizations to deal with historical memory and construct their own identity. This construction and appeal to various historical symbols serves as an opportunity for our subjects to access various symbolic and material resources. Since the Museum of Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences functions sporadically, and the Museum of Science and Technology did not manage to take its place, the NSU museum tries to pull a significant part of the capital of the "general narrative" on itself. The policy of the Ministry of Science favoring the higher school during the 2010s made the university one of the most active players in Akademgorodok. A reflection of this process, perhaps, was the reduced role of rectors compared to M.A. Lavrentyev in the university narrative. In the historical narratives of our subjects Lavrentiev expresses two trends: on the one hand, his image marks the ambitious position of a potential leader of the Akademgorodok as represented by Siberian Branch of RAS or University, and on the other hand, Lavrentiev is a banner of the Golden Age for organizations like Club of Young Engineers, which have been weakened by market reforms, acting from conservative positions. Finally, the hypostasis of the founding academician as the director of the Institute of Hydrodynamics seems very successful. For the staff of this research institute Lavrentiev acts as “their” director, under whom the Institute achieved a confident position that was once organically, with the same body of the director, converted into the influence on the entire Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences. Lavrentiev, as the director of IGIL SB RAS, brings to the narratives of other strong academic institutions, which are represented through their own directors and founding academicians, minimally involving the "general narrative. The figure of the director in these stories turns out to be identical to the entire staff of the research institute, and local historical time is organized by the change of directors. Despite the presence in the "general narrative" of the idea of the Laurentian Akademgorodok as an interdisciplinary space, we have almost no ambitions of individual institutes to conduct their history over their own administrative and disciplinary boundaries. Instead, the private Integral Museum is actively engaged in this endeavor. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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