When the Mute Speak to the Deaf
Generational Dialogue and History Policy in Russia
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The 65th anniversary of victory in the Second World War in May 2010 will be the last one that a considerable number of veterans will experience. Ten years ago, the living memory of millions of veterans still confronted the myth of glorious victory. Today, the process of passing down of personal memory has practically run dry. Young people in Russia are at the mercy of an ideologised, pseudo-patriotic politics of memory. By itself, family memory would be a source of remembrance. But even that was always fragmented and contradictory. Traumas and censorship kept old people from opening up. The upheaval of the 1990s led to a situation in which the values and experiences of the old no longer applied to the young. A dialogue addressing historical experiences could hardly take place under such conditions.
(Osteuropa 5/2010, pp. 17–26)