Article
Фигурации памяти: процессо-реляционная методология, иллюстрируемая на примере Германии
Jeffrey Olick is one of the most prominent researchers in the field of memory studies nowadays. Yet, none of his works have been translated into Russian. “Figurations of memory” as the author himself states is one of his most important texts. It is dedicated to the process-relational methodology. J. Olick criticizes traditional approaches as they see collective memory as a static thing, whereas it should be studied as a process. On the other hand author criticizes a mainstream understanding of memory as a unified object. Instead he suggests that there are multiple mnemonic forms and practices that should be investigated. As a result he presents a new methodology that is based on analysis of the four essential aspects of memory work: field (mostly in a sense in which Bourdieu used it), medium, genre and profile. This method of analysis leads to emergence of additional empirical categories, such as official, vernacular, public, and private memory; affective, aesthetic-expressive, instrumental-cognitive, and political-moral media; the normal legitimation, German traditions, German victimhood, and German guilt genres; and the reliable, moral, and normal profiles. Though in the end the model may seem rather complex, author claims that it is by far more clear and precise that other models of research of collective memory. More than that, he claims that this methodology can be universal for studying a large number of sociological topics.
Preface: “The Holocaust as a Part of Soviet History”
Based on extensive collection of interviews with Soviet, mostly - Ukrainian, - Jews born before the World War II, the essay examines the problem of religious observance and attitudes to it before and after the war concentrating on the circumcision, the first rite of passage, primal in Judaism and exceedingly dangerous during the Holocaust.
In this chapter, I argue that the Durkheimian theory of the sacred is a crucial yet not fully recognized resource for cognitive sociology. It contains not only a theory of culture (which is acknowledged in contemporary sociology), but also a vision of culture-cognition relations. Thus, Durkheimian cultural sociology allows us to understand the crucial role the sacred/profane opposition plays in structuring culture, perception and thought. Based on a number of theories, I also show how another opposition – between the pure and impure modes of the sacred, allows us to explain dynamic features of the sacred and eventually provides a basic model of social change. While explicating this vision and resultant opportunities for sociological analysis I also criticize ‘cognition apart from culture’ approaches established within cognitive sociology. I argue, thus, that culture not only participates in cognition but is an intrinsic ingredient of the human mind. Culture is not a chaotic and fragmented set of elements, as some sociologists imply to a greater or lesser degree, but a system; and as such it is an inner environment for human thought and social action. This system, however, is governed not by formal logic, as some critics of the autonomy of culture presuppose, but by concrete configurations of emotionally-charged categories, created and re-created in social interactions.
This article analyzes the theoretical approaches to the investigation of nostalgia in the social sciences. Nostalgia has become an important element of interaction of individual and social consciousness of the past. The concept of nostalgia needs theoretical conceptualization. Now it is used as a convenient metaphor that describes a complex range of emotional experiences associated with the past. This article provides an overview of current concepts of nostalgia and to comment on the further theoretical development of the concept.
Debate on the exhibit Great Patriotic War and Holocaust at the Moscow Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center.
Scientific and educational project "Culture of Reconiliation: New historical consciousness in Ukraine" was held in autumn 2015 with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany and the society "Bochum - Donetsk" (Germany). The project brought together the experts studying the problems of historical memory and the collisions of historical narratives, problems of healing the wounds of the past. How can we exclude the exploration of historical knowledge as a instrument of war propaganda? How can we turn history into space of coexistence and the retention of the human dignity. Historians, philosophers, sociologists and culture experts from several European states combined their efforts in this book.
The book is aimed at the audience of specialists in philosophy of history and all those who are interested in the nature of past and historical memory.
Saint veneration is probably the most important and characteristic part of the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition as a lived religion. To become a “lived religion” again, post-Soviet Orthodox Christianity needed new, up-to-date saints who would attract the attention of the community. The canonization of a saint is always a political act. Every canonization is a political statement, whether openly articulated or not. In the post-Soviet period the recent history of relations between the state and church has been at the center of several levels of public debate. As a consequence, the official Church elaborated a number of projects in which its attitude toward the Soviet past was reformulated. On the one side, the New Martyrs project was promoted by the liberal Church establishment and inspired and initiated by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. The canonization of New Martyrs asserts that during the period of religious persecution, the Orthodox tradition in the USSR was interrupted and almost disappeared. The canonization of Saint Matrona, on the contrary, states that religious life continued under the Soviet regime, embodied in people such as this blind and paralyzed village woman.
This article is talking about state management and cultural policy, their nature and content in term of the new tendency - development of postindustrial society. It mentioned here, that at the moment cultural policy is the base of regional political activity and that regions can get strong competitive advantage if they are able to implement cultural policy successfully. All these trends can produce elements of new economic development.