Anastasia V. Mitrofanova

This article examines the challenges in self-narration faced by cities with short, sparse, and monotonous histories. Moving beyond the concept of “difficult heritage,” which focuses on problematic historical content (e.g., legacies of forced labor), the authors introduce “difficult temporality” to describe a structural scarcity of historical events. Through case studies of five Russian cities (Kovrov, Chernogorsk, Inta, Dudinka, and Susuman), the article identifies core and supplementary strategies these communities use to construct a usable past. The primary strategies, often state-supported, include the appropriation of nationally significant events and manipulation of the city timeline via prolongation or reduction. These approaches primarily address temporal scarcity while minimizing engagement with difficult heritage. Supplementary strategies, employed by non-state actors, involve an “embrace-it-all” approach to local events, a shift from history to ethnography/nature, and the corporate reinterpretation of the past. The research employs the method of temporal mapping to reconstruct local temporal landscapes. It concludes that the convergence of these diverse strategies, pursued by multiple actors with differing agendas, results in a multivocal, bricolaged temporal landscape.

The authors focus on how faith‑based groups, either affiliated with the Church, or those whose connection to Orthodoxy may be uncertain, provide patriotic education primarily through paramilitary activities and instruction in martial arts (sports). The article seeks to answer the question: why faith‑based groups are increasingly interested in military‑ patriotic education and why this education is predominantly implemented through activities like sports and martial arts. The authors posit that patriotic activity serves not only as a means of obtaining financial support, but also as a way to legitimize the existence of groups that may be in conflict with the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Patriotic education also reflects faith‑based groups’ intention to return to the ritualistic origins of sport and other physical practices, presenting them as a form of worldly asceticism. The article is based on a close‑up study of the former Pokrov Fraternity (Perm), the Center “Spas” (Obninsk), and the all‑Russian movement “Sorok Sorokov”, not being limited to them.

Fundamentalists in the Russian Orthodox Church see contemporary state institutions as sources of threat because of their fragility and unreliability. Thus, in response, they engage in ritual and political actions aimed at restoring the spiritual unity of the Russian people ( sobornost ) that would allow the monarchy to be restored and resume the God-given mission of the Russian Orthodox Church to delaying the apocalypse. In this article, the author reveals the ways the concept of an averted or delayed apocalypse shapes fundamentalists’ approaches to institution and network building as alternatives to existing public institutions, which they consider incapable in the face of the approaching End Time. The author distinguishes between anti-systemic fundamentalists (those unwilling to have anything in common with the existing sociopolitical system) and symbiotic fundamentalists (those involved in provisional cooperation with state agencies). Anti-systemic fundamentalists insist on Russians’ verbal repentance for the sin of abandoning their mission of averting the Apocalypse; sometimes they live in walled communities. Symbiotic fundamentalists are building networks or communities that do not necessarily imply living together. Using these communities as a tool, symbiotic fundamentalists hope to rebuild the spiritual unity of the Russians. They envision their activities as repentance by works that in the future would allow the Orthodox monarchy to be restored and to resume the God-given mission of the church.

The article is dedicated to theoretical and practical aspects of how the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) implements is social projects working with foreign labor migrants on the territory of the Russian Federation. The role of the Church is evaluated simultaneously through analyzing the practice of implementing projects for sociocultural adaptation of migrants, which take place under the aegis and with the participation of ecclesiastical institutions. The main research problem of the article is to fund out whether church bodies are ready to work with labor migrants and to evaluate their effectiveness. The study relies on analyzing church-state agreements and ecclesiastical documents on migration and related issues. This made possible defining the legal boundaries for the activities of Orthodox religious associations working in the field of sociocultural adaptation of foreign labor migrants. Critical documentary analysis contributed into characterizing the official position of the Church and the positions of Orthodox activists and representatives of intelligentsia. To identify conflicting opinions the research implied analysis of two opposite positions on the issue of migration: nationalists, who intend to make Orthodoxy the property of the Russian ethnic nation, and supporters of unlimited proselytism. Our vision of grassroots social work with migrants resulted from a qualitative analysis of network data related to social projects of the Orthodox community, as well as from participant observation done by one of the authors who took part in one of such projects. The study concludes that the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in the sphere of sociocultural adaptation of foreign labor migrants should be evaluated as insufficiently effective to become stimulating both for strengthening the Orthodox community and for increasing its social capital.

This chapter is about the Museum for the History of Political Repression Perm-36 (“The Zone”). It aims at identifying the polyphony of representations related to this abandoned corrective labor colony, being simultaneously a memorial site and an image preserved in the multiple memories of the people who lived and worked there. The authors conclude that it remains obscure what sorts of conclusions its visitors are expected to make. The narratives of the exhibitions are polyphonic, though not embracing the voices of the local people, and their concepts of the past seem slightly different. Employing qualitative analysis of an archival collection of interviews with former political detainees, The Zone’s personnel, and local residents, the authors have identified at least three versions of the past lived anew by those who can be roughly categorized as victims, persecutors, and spectators, although they persistently deny these roles. Each group presents its memory as the only possible way of remembering Perm-36, while trying to discredit the versions of the others. Having in mind that the problem of conflicting narratives will not be resolved in the foreseeable future, the authors promote non-narrative forms of memory embodiment to provide a direct connection with the past independently of group identities and ideological orientations.

Монография подводит итоги исследования механизмов воздействия травматизирующих событий прошлого на жизнь современного общества как в целом, так и на уровне отдельных групп – в частности, влияния коллективной исторической травмы на групповую идентичность и её политическое выражение. В центре внимания находится проявление следов социальной и культурной травмы прошлых времён в современных ситуациях, роль травмы в групповой идентичности и возможность её использования для подавления внутригрупповых противоречий. Книга предназначена для научных работников, преподавателей вузов, студентов и аспирантов, специализирующихся в области политологии, истории, исследований социальной памяти, социологии и смежных дисциплин.

Introduction. The article summarizes the results of a study of social practices and narratives of the commemoration of the victims of mass political repression in the village of Kruglyi (the Republic of Mordovia) that was established as a permanent settlement in the period of collectivization. Materials and Methods. The theoretical framework of the study consists of social theories of “memory sites” and collective trauma. The method of collecting empirical data corresponded to case study, including observation, in-depth interviews and discourse analysis of media publications. The data were analyzed using the methods of thick ethnographic description and narrative discourse analysis. Results and Discussion. The article reviews the social context of local commemoration; identifies the main stages and practices of creating a “place of memory” in the village of Kruglyi by constructing a self-made monument of stained oak with a memorial plaque, and its subsequent mediatization. The authors analyze local discourses and narratives of social memory and material aspects of commemoration; regional, identify national and international mnemonic actors, acting as agents of the process of cultural trauma. They reveal and interpret the content of competing narratives of victimization and devictimization of the local community. Conclusion. Based on the data obtained in the course of fieldwork, the authors deconstruct media of the history of the village and identify two different models of its description. They conclude that these models are conditioned by various models of commemorating social trauma: one is “therapeutic”, focused more on deprivation and the loss of group identity; another one is “macrohistoric”, or in other words based on interpreting trauma as an aspect of social transformation seen as a process containing prerequisites for working the trauma out.

The authors propose a typology of sites of memory of political repressions that took place in different periods of Russian history, which emerged under the influence of a set of historical, social and cultural factors. The purpose of the study is to trace the logic of the formation of specific types of monuments, including those existing in the form of the so-called counter-monuments, in the process of implementing the politics of memory and formulating ideas about the traumatic past. The authors used the chronotopic method of examining sites of memory in a number of regions of Russia, such as the memorial complex Perm-36, multiple sites of commemoration at the Bolshoy Solovetsky Island, places of memory at the Rybinsk water reservoir, the Butovo polygon, memorial objects in the Saratov region, and the Republic of Mordovia, architectural constructions in the Russian Far East, etc. Theoretically, the research is rooted in the concept of “memory sites” proposed by Pierre Nora and understood as a combination of material and spiritual elements of culture that carry a symbolic load associated with understanding the social past. The authors demonstrate the presence of several types of memorial sites. It turned out that in the Russian domain of memory about the political repressions there are no sites that meet the criteria of a traditional monument. Conditionally traditional monuments can be territorially localized (solitary or complex) or dispersed (standard or heterogeneous). The second type of monuments is defined as hybrid, including vernacular, alternative and palimpsest varieties. Vernacular monuments are determined by their agents of construction, while the alternative ones are associated with specific interpretations of the past and can be supplemented with new constructive elements in the course of existence, palimpsests imply the explicit or hidden presence of many symbolically loaded layers. Counter-monuments constitute a special type represented by walking, landscape, ecological, and disappearing monuments. They are characterized as performative and participatory. The presence of different types of monuments proves not so much the absence of a unified strategy of commemoration in Russian society, but rather the fact that multiple social groups participate in the process of commemoration, producing heterogeneous and polyphonic monuments.

The authors’ objective was to find out how and why the approach of the Russian Orthodox Church to sociocultural adaptation of predominantly Muslim international labor migrants has evolved from its initial stage to now. Research methodology is based on a critical analysis of various sources, on observations, and archival materials. The adaptation program of the Church was advertised as a secular project pursuing the goal of peacekeeping because of a tacit agreement on mutual non-proselytisation between the basic faith-based communities in Russia. The initiative, launched in December 2012, had to merge adaptation courses of all dioceses into a nationwide network that then was expected to become part of an all-Russian system of preparation for language and culture tests. The Church also planned to open its own network of testing centrescenters for migrants. The authors emphasize that, although some of the diocesan courses were successful, the initiative deteriorated due to many external and internal factors. One of them was that diocesan courses have proven to be unattractive for labor migrants; their curriculum was too thick and overloaded with information about Russian culture and Orthodox Christianity, while Muslim labor migrants preferred to adapt to their new environment with a mediation of their own networks. It is suggested by the authors that the main cause of the project’s non-fulfillment was an intra-church cleavage between the enthusiasts of adaptation who convinced that diocesan courses must aim at spreading the Orthodox faith to foreign workers, including Muslims, and the church officials who promoted secular curriculum and forbade preaching Christianity to labor migrants.