200th anniversary of the Patriotic War 1812. Commemoration practices

Abstract

The article attempts to study commemoration practices of 200th anniversary of the Patriotic War 1812. The celebration of that anniversary became a large-scale event in the social and political life of post-SovietRussiaand was substantially supported by the state.

Employing information from mass media the author considers the process of collective memory formation: its participants (state and society) and the way two types of commemoration (state and social) correspond to each other.

The focal point of our article is a set of commemoration practices the state used during the celebration and the society’s reaction to it manifested in the activities of non-governmental organization, independent mass media. Their analysis can help understand the process and mechanism of formation of the collective memory, the interrelation between state and society as participants of commemoration.

Memorial studies including applicable to anniversaries of the Patriotic War of 1812, are widely prevalent in modern Russian historiography. Anniversaries of the Patriotic war of 1812 become a prevalent theme of historical researches. However, historians almost do not focus their attention on the society’s reaction to the unofficial commemorative practices. Such studies would allow to understand how society independently tries to form its commemorative practices, its memory places, etc. (and whether it forms).

The author tries to consider the interaction of two narratives of historical memory, what will allow getting a more coherent, multilateral picture of commemorative practices in connection with the anniversaries of the Patriotic War of 1812, and also to avoid the somewhat distorted view that society only passively adopts what the state offers.