Mischa Gabowitsch (ed.), Pamiatnik i prazdnik: etnografiia Dnia Pobedy
Mischa Gabowitsch (ed.), Pamiatnik i prazdnik: etnografiia Dnia Pobedy, St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriia, 2020, 416 pages
Full text
1Mischa Gabowitsch is a distinguished scholar of commemorative practices, war memorials, and social movements, whose work spans history, sociology, and contemporary Russian politics. In Pamiatniki i prazdnik: etnografiia Dnia Pobedy he draws together a remarkable collection of essays which explore these fields. Its central focus is how different cities, countries, and communities mark Victory Day, and what roles Soviet war memorials play in these commemorative rituals. The volume achieves this by an ethnographical examination of how Victory Day was marked on and around 9 May 2013 in Berlin, Grozny, Minsk, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Sevastopol, Sofia, Sortavala, Rostov-on-Don, Vienna, Vilnius, and the Urals village of Pervomaiskii. Scholars of the memory of the Second World War will already know Gabowitsch’s influential collection of essays Pamiat’ o voine 60 let spustia published in 2005 by Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. Pamiatnik i prazdnik is fruitfully read in dialogue with this earlier volume, for both take a snapshot of memorial practices at a particular moment across Russia and Europe. There are similarities in approach to Gabowitsch’s earlier project, which allows readers with access to both volumes to gauge changing memory practices and politics. This goal of examining how the memory of the Second World War has changed, and how it continues to change, is critically important if we are to understand the ways in which the memory and meaning of the Second World War have been appropriated, mobilized, and manipulated by various actors under Russian President Vladimir Putin.
2The research, ethnographical observations, and interviews which underpin this book’s sixteen chapters were the product of an international project entitled “Monument and Ritual” which simultaneously studied the commemoration of Victory Day on 9 May 2013 in twenty-three different cities in eleven countries, including former Soviet republics and states with experience of a Soviet military presence during and after the Second World War. Although this work was completed in 2013, Gabowitsch’s foreword explains the disruption to publication caused by changing geopolitics, specifically the Euromaidan protests, the annexation of Crimea, and the onset of the war in eastern Ukraine. These events delayed publication until 2020, which is addressed in postscripts to several chapters, detailing how commemoration changed in seven years of conflict. It also helps contextualize the absence of work on Victory Day in Ukraine in the volume. Sadly, the reception and further dissemination of this important and timely publication will almost certainly be disrupted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. As economic, academic, and digital barriers go up between Russia and much of the rest of the globe, obtaining a copy of Nestor istoriia’s well-produced and extensively illustrated volume will only become harder. Given the centrality of memory politics to Putin’s political project and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this is deeply unfortunate, as the study makes several important scholarly contributions and eloquently documents the changing nature of commemorative practice.
3Central to this volume’s contributions are a focus on the spatial dimensions of how Soviet war memorials were used in commemorative activities at a specific moment in time (May 2013), and the concrete physical and social spaces in which parades, memory rituals, and other public events were bounded. This builds upon recent research trends which take the study of Soviet war memorials beyond architectural and design considerations, and monuments’ symbolism, by exploring how different individuals, communities, and generational groups interact with the physical remnants of Soviet memorial culture. This permits a sustained focus on the local, regional, and national specificities of memorialization. Although scholars frequently refer to the official late-Soviet cult of the Great Patriotic War and the Putin era repurposing of war memory as coherent projects, these essays are a timely reminder that official memory politics are adapted, appropriated, and performed in local contexts, which often depart from official scripts. Through careful ethnographical observation and interviewing of those present at Victory Day rituals this collection reveals the behaviours, emotions, and attitudes that surround commemorative activity. The comparative analysis of different cities and nations shows us how memory operates in different political contexts, beyond the simple binary of opposition of state and society.
4The book is divided into three main sections: first, there are eight chapters focusing on places and spaces within the Russian Federation, second, three chapters exploring post-Soviet spaces, and finally, five chapters examining the relationship between Soviet war memorials and memory rituals beyond Soviet borders, particularly in places with significant diasporic communities from Russia, Ukraine, and other parts of the former Soviet Union. The combination of examination of familiar memorial complexes with less well-known places and memorials is compelling. We gain new insights into how Moscow’s Poklonnaia gora (in the chapter by Natal’ia Koliagina and Natal’ia Kondradova), Saint Petersburg’s Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery (in the chapter by François-Xavier Nerard and Aleks Dvorkin) and the Soviet war memorials in Berlin (in Sevil Huseynova and Mikhail Gabowitsch’s chapters) were used by various groups in 2013. Amongst less familiar locations are Ol’ga Davydova-Menge’s examination of Victory Day in Sortavala in the Karelian Republic, a city with a complicated transnational memory of the Second World War, and Ol’ga Reznikova’s examination of memories of pain and suffering in Grozny, a city where Victory Day is intertwined with a wider colonial and post-colonial context, and memories of more recent conflicts.
5Pamiatniki i prazdnik impresses in its scale and scope, and the nuance of the anthropological analysis that it offers. As travel to Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus looks all but impossible in the short-term, and increasingly difficult in the medium to long-term, the essays offer an invaluable insight into an aspect of war memory that is easily caricatured and misrepresented. Let us hope that this talented group of researchers are able to continue collaborations like this and continue to document the ways in which the memory of the Second World War, and the role of Victory Day, will undoubtedly shift in the coming years.
References
Electronic reference
Robert Dale, “Mischa Gabowitsch (ed.), Pamiatnik i prazdnik: etnografiia Dnia Pobedy”, The Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies [Online], Issue 23 | 2023, Online since 25 September 2023, connection on 15 February 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/pipss/6513; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/pipss.6513
Top of pageCopyright
The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.
Top of page