HISTORICAL POLITICS AND COLLECTIVE IDEAS ABOUT THE PAST IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES

The subject of the study is a comparison of the influence of state and non-state actors on the formation of collective perceptions of the past. Non-state actors include local communities whose commemorative practices involve family memory, social media discourse, and informal citizen associations that emerge outside the framework of official historical policy. TMethods used include a sociological survey and in-depth interviews. The study was conducted in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug–Yugra. It is concluded that a lack of conceptualization of state historical policy creates semantic gaps in collective ideas about the past, which are filled by various—often informal—local community practices. In some cases, narratives of state historical policy are simply ignored by collective memory; in other cases, they receive a significantly different semantic meaning; and in yet other cases, they turned out to be able to form discourses that contradict the official historical doctrine. The sources of informal mnemonic practices of local communities—the immediate environment in which individuals communicate—are perceived not only as highly trustworthy on a cognitive level but also exert a much deeper impact on the emotional sphere, appealing to images of family or local history.