Historical Memories of Russians Today (history of the XX century Russia in the optics of families’ stories)

Referring to the data of long-term sociological research by the Federal Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the author studies how the historical memory in contemporary Russian society is forming under the influence of the discursive politicization of the national past. The purpose of the article is to study either the images of the recent national past that are rooted in the mass consciousness of Russians being the basis of collective identity, or the changes in attitudes towards the past under the influence of the state rhetoric “historization”. The realization of the scientific purpose involves to solve some research tasks: to study the dynamics of respondents’ interest in the state’s past when political leaders used to apply to historical memory, to analyze what people in Russia think about historical truth, about the ways and the actors of its protection. Under the contemporary political context, when the past and history become tools of political competition, many persons in Russia, for whom the Soviet heritage is the foundation of national identity and family memory, support the idea of the need to protect the socially accepted interpretation of Russian history. In 2020’th the majority of the respondents (37%) claimed the need to react harshly to the distorted interpretation of some events in Russian history when whey answered the question “How should Russia react to the false interpretation of certain historical events in some Western countries?”. The historical truth is considered by the Russia’s citizens as a universal interpretation of historical events, so the majority (48%) claims it is necessary to protect historical memory by the preservation of those interpretations of the historical events, that are admitted by the society. Supporting the idea that historical truth should be protected, Russian citizens rather support harsh political statements and defensive foreign policy discourse than demonstrate real involvement into historical context, their own daily interest in protecting accepted interpretations of the past and personal concern about their correctness. In 2022 less than a third of the respondents (29%) considered the ordinary citizens should protect the historical truth, while the majority claimed the state’s leadership (67%), professional historians (49%) and social scientists (38%) should defend national historical memory.