Conference in Targoviste, Romania

On 21 May I delivered a paper entitled ‘Memory at War in Estonia and the Crimea: a comparative analysis of commemorative practices surrounding the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945’ at the conference Baltic Sea and Black Sea Region: Influences, Confluences and Crosscurrents in the modern and contemporary ages organised by the Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies in Targoviste, Romania 20-22 May. Many thanks are due to the organisers for such an engaging and successful conference.

Conference Paper Abstract

This paper takes the Russian-speaking communities of Estonia and the Crimea as a comparative case study for the role of memory in cultural aggression in current-day Eastern Europe. It uses the ‘memory event’ paradigm (Etkind, 2010) to explore public war commemoration (9 May Victory Day) along three analytical axes: 1) state vs. publically led; 2) import vs. export model; and 3) creative vs. recreative.

Russian-speakers on the territory of Estonia became part of the ‘beached masses’ (Laitin, 1998) when the borders of the Soviet Empire ebbed in 1989. The trajectory of this unexpected minority moved from exclusion from Estonian citizenship through to an integration model of de facto assimilation. Against this background, Ehala (2009) has theorized the ‘bronze soldier’ incident as a powerful rejection of the Russian speakers’ claim to be culturally recognised. Notable here is the role of young Russian speakers in contesting the hegemonic national narrative of Soviet invasion and occupation.

After 1991, the Crimea was consolidated (unexpectedly for many) as part of independent Ukraine, however its status as an Autonomous Republic attests to the cultural distinctness of the peninsula. Russian speakers form a strong majority which is reflected in the proud military past commemorated for example in the port town of Sevastopol – the uneasy home to both the Ukrainian and Russian navies. The proud war narrative is counterposed here by the memory of the Crimean Tatars who were deported en masse by Stalin in 1944 to return only after 1991.

This paper compares and contrasts the cultural dynamics of memory and traces the congruence between ‘memory wars’ and vested interests in Estonia and the Crimea. It confirms a high degree of cultural standardisation of Victory Day celebrations which incorporate both creative and recreative elements. Such models and practices are actively exported to these regions by Russian political will and the influential Russian media sphere, however they are also actively imported by Russian speakers in her ‘near abroad’. Victory Day in the Crimea has wide political and institutional support which is reflected in largely state-organized and funded activities. In Estonia commemorative practices belong much more to the sphere of civil society activity. In both cases, Russia proper has instrumentalised memory politics as a way of protecting both her ‘compatriots’ and defending her cultural heritage within these geo-political zones.

The full text of this paper will appear in a forthcoming edition of the Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies (peer-reviewed).