FORUM FOR ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE

ANTROPOLOGICHESKIJ FORUM
RUS | ENG

Antropologicheskij forum, 2019, no. 43

 

A Review of JU. A. SAFRONOVA, ISTORICHESKAYA PAMYAT: VVEDENIE [HISTORICAL MEMORY: AN INTRODUCTION]: A Textbook. St Petersburg: European University at St Petersburg Press, 2019, 220 pp.

Fyodor Nikolai

Minin Nizhny Novgorod State Pedagogical University (Minin University)
1 Ulyanova Str., Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
fvnik()list.ru

Abstract: The review of Julia A. Safronova,s textbook Historical Memory: An Introduction is devoted to the main trends of contemporary memory studies. Contradictions of the constructivist interpretation of memory politics that dominates in Russia and Eastern Europe are compared with the ethical pathos of Western memory studies. The textbook implies a “defensive” strategy, subordinating the “memory boom” to neutral academic expertise. However, such a frame eliminates the cooperative practices connecting professional historians, social researchers and a wide variety of enthusiasts working-through their common past. The aims of this working-through are, on the one hand, a clarification of the phenomenology of historical experience, and on the other, a revision of relations between private and public spheres in contemporary culture.

Keywords: memory studies, public history, politics of memory, practices of commemoration.

To cite: Nikolai F., ‘A Review of Ju. A. Safronova, Istoricheskaya pamyat: vvedenie [Historical Memory: An Introduction]: A Textbook. St Petersburg: European University at St Petersburg Press, 2019, 220 pp.’, Antropologicheskij forum, 2019, no. 43, pp. 180–188.

doi: 10.31250/1815-8870-2019-15-43-180-188

URL: http://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/043/nikolai.pdf