“Framing” and “Screening” the Gulag: Politics of Memory of the Great Patriotic War and Stalin’s Repressions in Russian Regions

Communist and Post-Communist Studies. 2022. Vol. 55. No. 3. P. 24–43.

Khlevnyuk D.

The victory in the Great Patriotic War has become the cornerstone myth of Russian politics and identity. Whether there is an international or an internal conflict, the war history is invoked in political speeches and media propaganda. Soviet repressions, on the contrary, are rarely used by the state memory politics. Many scholars claim that the two memories are opposing: one is heroic and “nationalist,” the other is tragic and “cosmopolitan.” A study of regional memory politics and activism shows, however, that the interrelation between the two is more complicated. Rarely do they come in a direct conflict. Instead, depending on the local history and politics, the conflict is either subtle and leads to the “screening” of the repressions history, or it leads to the “framing” of the repressions narratives.

Keywords: Russia, USSR, memory politics, Great Patriotic War, Soviet repressions

Publication based on the results of: Genealogies of “algorithmic rationality” in the late USSR: from cybernetic utopia to information society (2022)