The Discourse of Postcolonialism in the Politics of Memory of the Post-Soviet States

The author of the article outlines special features of the "politics of memory" of the post-Soviet states and Russia, which are characterized by new, often diametrically opposite interpretation of the events of the common past. First of all, in the new national histories, the image of the imperial and Soviet Russia was created as a "negatively significant Other" within the discourse of post-colonialism. This scheme is also transferred to the current relations with the post-imperial Russia. It is stressed that the postcolonial discourse of post-Soviet historians has much in common with the interpretation of the history of Russia in the USSR in the 1920s. The difference is that in the new national histories the Soviet period is interpreted as the time of colonial domination of Russia and the Russians over the peoples of the national peripheries of the empire. At the same time, the article notes that the reaction of the Russian political and intellectual elite to the issues created by the neighbors' "politics of memory" cannot be considered quite adequate. Moreover, memory politics in many national republics of the Russian Federation is based on the same postcolonial patterns as in the states of the post-Soviet space. Therefore, today, the problem of ensuring the unity of the historical myth throughout the entire space of Russia becomes extremely relevant, since in many national republics the "memory politics" is in a clear contradiction with the task of forming the all-Russian civil identity. This is largely due to the fact that school curricula until 2007 had a "regional component", and within its frames courses on regional or national history and ethnic pedagogics in the national republics of Russia in practice turned into "ethnocentrism electives" since they introduced the history and culture of the "titular" ethnos rather than covered the ethnic cultural diversity of the regions and the historically formed cultural ties between the "titular" ethnic groups and the Russians. At the same time, the historical past of the people before their integration into the Russian Empire was interpreted in the spirit of "ethnic romanticism", and the period of existence within the Russian/Soviet state was depicted as a time of colonial oppression. As a result, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that, in modern Russia, the collective past of Russians and post-Soviet peoples is predominantly an object of situational instrumental "use" rather than of purposeful systematic "construction" of Russian identity. The consequences of such politics of memory are characterized by reactivity, limited by the repertoire of the "politically appropriate" past, used for legitimizing the current decisions and actions of the Russian authorities.

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