Birthplaces of Our Fear: Reception of Yuri Dud’s Documentary “Kolyma” in Social Media
Research Article
How to Cite
Khlevnyuk D.O., Maximova A.S. Birthplaces of Our Fear: Reception of Yuri Dud’s Documentary “Kolyma” in Social Media. Interaction. Interview. Interpretation. 2021. Vol. 13. No. 4. P. 28-46. DOI: https://doi.org/10.19181/inter.2021.13.4.2 (in Russ.).
Abstract
The article examines reception of the online documentary "Kolyma — the birthplace of our fear" (produced by journalist Yuri Dud in 2019) in social networks. In their comments, internet users regard other topics along with the Soviet repressions, to which the film is dedicated. They discuss the traumatic experience of the recent past, namely the late Soviet period, the collapse of the USSR, the 1990s, and contemporary problems. As a result of analysis of YouTube comments, we identify two trauma narratives. The first narrative is based on the idea of violation of civil human rights, the second focuses on the violation of socio-economic rights. Different topics appear in comments and posts on social media depending on which rights viewers consider key and which they pay more attention to when watching the documentary. In the case of civil rights, these include contemporary political repressions in Russia, names of famous political prisoners, references to recent protests. In the case of socio-economic rights, these topics include privatization, oligarchs, economic reforms, inequality. Those users who comment about the violation of socio-economic rights generally express a positive attitude towards the USSR and a critical attitude towards capitalism. Topics such as corruption or the problems of the penitentiary system in Russia are “inbetween” — they are important symbols in both narratives. The study clarifies how the cultural trauma narrative of the recent past and present-day events is formed. We also demonstrate how this process takes place on social media, and how social media enables participation of ordinary users and not only public figures.
Keywords:
Stalin’s repressions, cultural trauma, collective memory, social networks, civil rights, socio-economic rights
References
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Birkner T., Donk A. (2020) Collective Memory and Social Media: Fostering a New Historical Consciousness in the Digital Age? Memory Studies. Vol. 13. No. 4. P. 367—383. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698017750012
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Chernysh M. (2011) Istoricheskaya travma i pamyat': sluchay iz Afganskoy voyny [Historical Trauma and Memory: The Case of the Afghan War]. Interaktsiya. Interv'yu. Interpretatsiya [Interaction. Interview. Interpretation]. Vol. 5. No. 6. P. 77—87. (In Russ.)
Demertzis N., Eyerman R. (2020) Covid-19 as Cultural Trauma. American Journal of Cultural Sociology. Vol. 8. No. 3. P. 428—450. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-020-00112-z
Eyerman R. (2001) Cultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511488788
Eyerman R. (2008) The Assassination of Theo van Gogh: From Social Drama to Cultural Trauma. Durham: Duke University Press Books. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11smsw3
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Eyerman R., Madigan T., Ring M. (2017) Cultural Trauma, Collective Memory and the Vietnam War. Politička misao: časopis za politologiju. Vol. 54. No. 1—2. P. 11—31.
Foot K., Warnick B., Schneider S.M. (2005) Web-Based Memorializing After September 11: Toward a Conceptual Framework. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Vol. 11. No. 1. P. 72—96. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.tb00304.x
Foucault M. (1977) Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
García-Gavilanes R. et al. (2017) The Memory Remains: Understanding Collective Memory in the Digital Age. Science Advances. Vol. 3. No 4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1602368
Golovashina O.V., Linchenko A.A., Anikin D.A. (2017) Pamyat' o Velikoy Otechestvennoy voyne: Den' Pobedy v istoricheskom soznanii rossiyan [Memory of the Great Patriotic War: Victory Day in the Historical Consciousness of Russians]. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. No. 3. P. 123—133. (In Russ.)
Gustafson D. (2012) Cultural Memory and the Royalist Political Aesthetic in Aphra Behn’s Later Works. Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660—1700. Vol. 36. No. 2 P. 1—22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/rst.2012.0007
Haskins E. (2007) Between Archive and Participation: Public Memory in a Digital Age. Rhetoric Society Quarterly. Vol. 37. No. 4. P. 401—422. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02773940601086794
Hess A. (2007) In Digital Remembrance: Vernacular Memory and the Rhetorical Construction of Web Memorials. Media, Culture & Society. Vol. 29. No. 5. P. 812—830. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0163443707080539
Hilmar T. (2021) “Economic Memories” of the Aftermath of the 1989 Revolutions in East Germany and the Czech Republic. East European Politics and Societies. Vol. 35. No. 1. P. 89—112.
Hoskins A. (2009) Digital Network Memory. Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory. Vol. 10. P. 91—108. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110217384.1.91
Jenkins H. (2019) Konvergentnaya kul'tura. Stolknoveniye starykh i novykh media [Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide]. Moscow: RIPOL klassik. (In Russ.)
Kansteiner W., Weilnböck H. (2008) Against the Concept of Cultural Trauma. Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook. Berlin: De Gruyter. P. 229—240. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110207262.4.229
Kasamara V.A., Sorokina A.A. (2014) Predstavleniya o proshlom studentov topovykh moskovskikh vuzov [Moscow Best Universities Students’ Representations about the Past]. Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost' [Social Sciences and Contemporary World]. No. 6. P. 57—69. (In Russ.)
Khlevnyuk D. (2019) Narrowcasting Collective Memory Online: ‘Liking’ Stalin in Russian Social Media. Media, Culture & Society. Vol. 41. No. 3. P. 317—331. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443718799401
Knudsen B.T., Stage C. (2013) Online War Memorials: YouTube as a Democratic Space of Commemoration Exemplified through Video Tributes to Fallen Danish Soldiers. Memory Studies. Vol. 6. No. 4. P. 418—436. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698012458309
Ksenofontova I. (2011) Virtualizatsiya memorial'nykh praktik: internet-sayt kak “kniga pamyati” [Virtualizatsiya Memorial Practices: the Internet Website as a “Book of Memory”]. Interaktsiya. Interv'yu. Interpretatsiya [Interaction. Interview. Interpretation]. Vol. 5. No. 6. P. 133—144. (In Russ.)
Kukulin I. (2013) Memory and Self-Legitimization in the Russian Blogosphere Argumentative Practices in Historical and Political Discussions in Russian-Language Blogs of the 2000s. Memory, Conflict and New Media: Web Wars in Post-Socialist States. New York: Routledge. P. 132—149. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203083635-25
Lazar A., Litvak Hirsch T. (2012) Representing the Group’s Cultural Trauma Online. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Vol. 15. No. 2. P. 99—102. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2011.0292
Lee M. (2011) Nostalgia as a Feature of “Glocalization”: Use of the Past in Post-Soviet Russia. Post-Soviet Affairs. Vol. 27. No. 2. P. 158—177. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2747/1060-586x.27.2.158
Nikolayenko O. (2008) Contextual Effects on Historical Memory: Soviet Nostalgia among Post-Soviet Adolescents. Communist and Post-Communist Studies. Vol. 41. No. 2. P. 243—259. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2008.03.001
Ostertag S.F., Ortiz D.G. (2013) The Battle over Meaning: Digitally Mediated Processes of Cultural Trauma and Repair in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina. American Journal of Cultural Sociology. No. 1. P. 186—220. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ajcs.2013.4
Papailias P. (2016) Witnessing in the Age of the Database: Viral Memorials, Affective Publics, and the Assemblage of Mourning. Memory Studies. Vol. 9. No. 4. P. 437—454. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698015622058
Recuber T. (2012) The Prosumption of Commemoration Disasters, Digital Memory Banks, and Online Collective Memory. American Behavioral Scientist. Vol. 56. No. 4. P. 531—549. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0002764211429364
Saito H. (2006) Reiterated Commemoration: Hiroshima as National Trauma. Sociological Theory. Vol. 24. No. 4. P. 353—376. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9558.2006.00295.x
Shifman L. (2014) Memes in Digital Culture. Cambridge: MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9429.001.0001
Sztompka P. (2004) The Trauma of Social Change. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press. P. 155—197. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520936768-006
Trubina E. (2010) Past Wars in the Russian Blogosphere: On the Emergence of Cosmopolitan Memory. Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media. Vol. 4. P. 63—85.
Zhukova E. (2016) From Ontological Security to Cultural Trauma: The Case of Chernobyl in Belarus and Ukraine. Acta Sociologica. Vol. 59. No. 4. P. 332—346. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0001699316658697
Alexander J.C. et al. (2004) Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Berkeley, London: University of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520936768
Birkner T., Donk A. (2020) Collective Memory and Social Media: Fostering a New Historical Consciousness in the Digital Age? Memory Studies. Vol. 13. No. 4. P. 367—383. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698017750012
Boym S. (1995) From the Russian Soul to Post-Communist Nostalgia. Representations. No. 49. P. 133—166. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2928753
Chernysh M. (2011) Istoricheskaya travma i pamyat': sluchay iz Afganskoy voyny [Historical Trauma and Memory: The Case of the Afghan War]. Interaktsiya. Interv'yu. Interpretatsiya [Interaction. Interview. Interpretation]. Vol. 5. No. 6. P. 77—87. (In Russ.)
Demertzis N., Eyerman R. (2020) Covid-19 as Cultural Trauma. American Journal of Cultural Sociology. Vol. 8. No. 3. P. 428—450. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-020-00112-z
Eyerman R. (2001) Cultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511488788
Eyerman R. (2008) The Assassination of Theo van Gogh: From Social Drama to Cultural Trauma. Durham: Duke University Press Books. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11smsw3
Eyerman R. (2016) Kul'turnaya travma i kollektivnaya pamyat' [Cultural Trauma and Collective Memory]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie [New Literary Review]. No. 5. P. 40—67. (In Russ.)
Eyerman R. (n.d.) Intellektualy i kul'turnaya travma [Intellectuals and Cultural Trauma]. URL: https://old.inliberty.ru/library/599-intellektualy-inbspkulturnaya-travma (accessed 20.05.2021). (In Russ.)
Eyerman R., Madigan T., Ring M. (2017) Cultural Trauma, Collective Memory and the Vietnam War. Politička misao: časopis za politologiju. Vol. 54. No. 1—2. P. 11—31.
Foot K., Warnick B., Schneider S.M. (2005) Web-Based Memorializing After September 11: Toward a Conceptual Framework. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Vol. 11. No. 1. P. 72—96. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.tb00304.x
Foucault M. (1977) Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
García-Gavilanes R. et al. (2017) The Memory Remains: Understanding Collective Memory in the Digital Age. Science Advances. Vol. 3. No 4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1602368
Golovashina O.V., Linchenko A.A., Anikin D.A. (2017) Pamyat' o Velikoy Otechestvennoy voyne: Den' Pobedy v istoricheskom soznanii rossiyan [Memory of the Great Patriotic War: Victory Day in the Historical Consciousness of Russians]. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. No. 3. P. 123—133. (In Russ.)
Gustafson D. (2012) Cultural Memory and the Royalist Political Aesthetic in Aphra Behn’s Later Works. Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660—1700. Vol. 36. No. 2 P. 1—22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/rst.2012.0007
Haskins E. (2007) Between Archive and Participation: Public Memory in a Digital Age. Rhetoric Society Quarterly. Vol. 37. No. 4. P. 401—422. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02773940601086794
Hess A. (2007) In Digital Remembrance: Vernacular Memory and the Rhetorical Construction of Web Memorials. Media, Culture & Society. Vol. 29. No. 5. P. 812—830. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0163443707080539
Hilmar T. (2021) “Economic Memories” of the Aftermath of the 1989 Revolutions in East Germany and the Czech Republic. East European Politics and Societies. Vol. 35. No. 1. P. 89—112.
Hoskins A. (2009) Digital Network Memory. Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory. Vol. 10. P. 91—108. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110217384.1.91
Jenkins H. (2019) Konvergentnaya kul'tura. Stolknoveniye starykh i novykh media [Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide]. Moscow: RIPOL klassik. (In Russ.)
Kansteiner W., Weilnböck H. (2008) Against the Concept of Cultural Trauma. Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook. Berlin: De Gruyter. P. 229—240. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110207262.4.229
Kasamara V.A., Sorokina A.A. (2014) Predstavleniya o proshlom studentov topovykh moskovskikh vuzov [Moscow Best Universities Students’ Representations about the Past]. Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost' [Social Sciences and Contemporary World]. No. 6. P. 57—69. (In Russ.)
Khlevnyuk D. (2019) Narrowcasting Collective Memory Online: ‘Liking’ Stalin in Russian Social Media. Media, Culture & Society. Vol. 41. No. 3. P. 317—331. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443718799401
Knudsen B.T., Stage C. (2013) Online War Memorials: YouTube as a Democratic Space of Commemoration Exemplified through Video Tributes to Fallen Danish Soldiers. Memory Studies. Vol. 6. No. 4. P. 418—436. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698012458309
Ksenofontova I. (2011) Virtualizatsiya memorial'nykh praktik: internet-sayt kak “kniga pamyati” [Virtualizatsiya Memorial Practices: the Internet Website as a “Book of Memory”]. Interaktsiya. Interv'yu. Interpretatsiya [Interaction. Interview. Interpretation]. Vol. 5. No. 6. P. 133—144. (In Russ.)
Kukulin I. (2013) Memory and Self-Legitimization in the Russian Blogosphere Argumentative Practices in Historical and Political Discussions in Russian-Language Blogs of the 2000s. Memory, Conflict and New Media: Web Wars in Post-Socialist States. New York: Routledge. P. 132—149. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203083635-25
Lazar A., Litvak Hirsch T. (2012) Representing the Group’s Cultural Trauma Online. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Vol. 15. No. 2. P. 99—102. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2011.0292
Lee M. (2011) Nostalgia as a Feature of “Glocalization”: Use of the Past in Post-Soviet Russia. Post-Soviet Affairs. Vol. 27. No. 2. P. 158—177. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2747/1060-586x.27.2.158
Nikolayenko O. (2008) Contextual Effects on Historical Memory: Soviet Nostalgia among Post-Soviet Adolescents. Communist and Post-Communist Studies. Vol. 41. No. 2. P. 243—259. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2008.03.001
Ostertag S.F., Ortiz D.G. (2013) The Battle over Meaning: Digitally Mediated Processes of Cultural Trauma and Repair in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina. American Journal of Cultural Sociology. No. 1. P. 186—220. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ajcs.2013.4
Papailias P. (2016) Witnessing in the Age of the Database: Viral Memorials, Affective Publics, and the Assemblage of Mourning. Memory Studies. Vol. 9. No. 4. P. 437—454. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698015622058
Recuber T. (2012) The Prosumption of Commemoration Disasters, Digital Memory Banks, and Online Collective Memory. American Behavioral Scientist. Vol. 56. No. 4. P. 531—549. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0002764211429364
Saito H. (2006) Reiterated Commemoration: Hiroshima as National Trauma. Sociological Theory. Vol. 24. No. 4. P. 353—376. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9558.2006.00295.x
Shifman L. (2014) Memes in Digital Culture. Cambridge: MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9429.001.0001
Sztompka P. (2004) The Trauma of Social Change. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press. P. 155—197. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520936768-006
Trubina E. (2010) Past Wars in the Russian Blogosphere: On the Emergence of Cosmopolitan Memory. Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media. Vol. 4. P. 63—85.
Zhukova E. (2016) From Ontological Security to Cultural Trauma: The Case of Chernobyl in Belarus and Ukraine. Acta Sociologica. Vol. 59. No. 4. P. 332—346. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0001699316658697
Article
Received: 15.07.2021
Accepted: 26.12.2021
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APA
Khlevnyuk, D. O., & Maximova, A. S. (2021). Birthplaces of Our Fear: Reception of Yuri Dud’s Documentary “Kolyma” in Social Media. Interaction. Interview. Interpretation, 13(4), 28-46. https://doi.org/10.19181/inter.2021.13.4.2
Section
Field work research
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