1. THE FORGOTTEN, THE OSTRACIZED, THE LOST OR THE EXOTIC? IN SEARCH FOR LIEUX DE MÉMOIRE REFERRING BACK TO SOCIALIST PAST IN THE POST-SOVIET CULTURAL SPACES.
- Author
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Galēja, Liena
- Subjects
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LIEUX de memoire (History) , *NOSTALGIA , *CULTURAL history , *MEMORY & politics - Abstract
The concept of lieux de mémoire has been suggested by a French historian Pierre Nora in 1970-s - 1990-s, attributed to any meaningful entity, whether material or non-material, which has become a symbolic element of the memorial heritage of a community by purposeful human performance or the work of time. Lieux de mémoire functions as an array of mnemonic techniques which is set into action when the „real”, „true” memory (Nora refers to it as milieux de mémoire) dies out, and a necessity arises for constructing a network structure of referring back to past, thus sustaining the actual identity of a community and laying a solid foundation for developing the existing identity or re-shaping it. In the post-Soviet transition societies lieux de mémoire referring back to the Soviet past can be regarded from several points of view, among which the predominating aspects are, first, a tendency to disassociate and forget the past; second, deliberate ostracism; third, a nostalgic yearning for the „lost paradise”; fourth, exotization the past as a marketing strategy. The research paper gives a broader insight into these aspects and role they play in the transition societies by searching for samples within the post-Soviet cultural spaces and specifically outlining the post-Soviet nostalgic phenomena in the cultural space of the post-Soviet Latvia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015