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Abstract

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Gulags have garnered an abundance of attention. From the structure of the system, to the conditions of the camps, and the famous writers, scientists and political prisoners that were sentenced to serve their time. Many important authors and academics began to discuss the value of memory in relation to tragic events. However, there have not been many studies focusing on the Baltics and Central Asia. Scholarship has rarely examined the memory of the Gulags from an Estonian museum (Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom), which leaves a lot of questions about the evolution of the memory. Another gap to explore is through a comparison of narratives in two former Soviet republics. The research will build on to our understanding of Estonia’s memory-building of the Gulags through the Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom, but also compare it with the Karlag Gulag Museum in Kazakhstan, while interviewing focus groups of 18-25 years olds to identify if memory of the Gulags comes from the information found in museums or from other avenues such as foreign media. To conduct my study, I will be visiting both museums to study their exhibitions about Gulags, analysis of the museum pamphlets, focus groups with 18–25-year-olds in both countries. I hypothesize that the memory surrounding these events, through the perspective of the museums, will be similar between the different populations of Estonia and Kazakhstan due to the shared experiences of the Soviet past, imprisoned writers, and experience inside the Gulags. This study is important because it will allow for a comparative analysis of two former Soviet Republics through similar tragic events and to identify tragedy as a unifying theme regardless of politics, culture, and geography.

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Abstract

The paper focuses on the examination of the complex structure of space and identity in the context of a Don Cossack region, which, emerges as a concept characterised and framed by the popular discourse rather than administrative boundaries (The Land of the Don Army). The paper accentuates the urgency of space/identity interplay at the time of crisis and/or austerity measures: I will demonstrate how Cossack space influenced the regional identity during three periods: Russian revolution of the beginning of the 20th century, the Collapse of USSR in 1990s, and the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine. Considering territory as a notions of ownership, power and control whereby that space is utilised for the attainment of particular outcomes (Sack 1986; Storey 2001; Delaney 2005; Elden 2010), I am going to argue the limitation of the approach when a borderland defined as a type of space where local indigenous actors far from imperial state centers could play off imperial powers against each other and thereby maintain a degree of regional power, autonomy, and freedom outside the scope of colonial control (Aron, Adelman 1999). Instead, I argue that Cossack region is to be considered as a continuous phenomenon of instability, mobility, and resistance that unsettles and exposes the limitations of the homogenizing national state-building project.

The main paper’s question is how a Don Cossacks as a space of permanent interconnection between borderland fixity and fluidity informs us about Cossack identity. The ‘sense of place’ produces a form of regional patriotism that includes controversial forms of loyalty and marginalised identities. In the paper I am also going to demonstrate epistemological dynamic about the Cossack space as a continuous adaptability of the universal and situated history-writings. The particular role of collective memory in the defining of a place is caused by the fact that any place ‘are the focus of personal sentiments, with the feelings for place permeating day-to-day life and experience’ (Muir 1999, 274). I will argue that dynamic of Cossack memory has been caused by two-fold process: from one hand it was determined by global humanities and the impact of growing memory-studies field, and from the another in Russian context it is deeply influenced by the political conjuncture and instrumentalisation of history in Russia. Thus, the paper provides a new lens through which to formulate a new concept of Cossacks as an identity and space.

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Abstract

On November 24, 2020, the State Commission for the Full Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions of Kazakhstan was created by the decree of the president of Kazakhstan K.Zh.Tokayev. The Commission focuses on rehabilitation of the victims of political repression in the period of 20-50s of the XX century of Soviet Kazakhstan. Employing Aleida Assmann’s (2016) theory of how historical traumas shape collective identities and the role of commemorative practices in collective memory, both official commemoration and lived experiences passed down from generation to generation, this paper analyzes the role of the State Commission and its influence in the formation of the collective and national identity of contemporary Kazakhstan. Drawing on expert interviews held with the members of the Commission and publicly available materials on their meetings, the author argues that the work of the Commission does not serve collective healing of the victims and recovery of cultural memory of the blind spots of the tragic past through collective memory. Instead, it serves as a political memory by State institutions to shape national identity. Through an interdisciplinary approach integrating political science with insights from history and international relations, this article aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the multifaceted ways in which tragic past and political rhetoric intersect to shape national narratives and their influence in collective healing.