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Nostalgia for the Soviet Past in the Post-Soviet Countries

By Tatsiana Amosava

Introduction

Maurice Halbwachs made collective memory an object of sociological research (1992). For the last half of a century it has become a prolific field of study with collective trauma as a principal concern. However, another modality of the collective memory has attracted a lot of researchers’ attention: nostalgia which eliminates any pain related to the past and presents it in harmonious, non-shady version.

Initially introduced in the end of the 17th century as a form of psychological disorder (as a disease) found in Swiss mercenaries who carried their services abroad, nostalgia was perceived differently by the representatives of different epochs. It became a fashion in the 19th century, and even now it is closely associated with fashion. Nowadays nostalgia is seen as a psychological mecanism of maintaining the identity continuity

(Fred Davis) and a mechanism which helps sustaining the wholeness of personality.

Nostalgia relates to life cycles. There are identifiable groups of population who are inclined to nostalgia. There are certain age groups: people in their late twenties are nostalgic of their late teen years, and the group of middle-aged people who are around their forty (till recently it 2 was possible to argue that it is an empty nest phase in the life cycle of women). Also, very old persons show the acute signs of longing for the past. In addition, there is a gender distinction: it is more typical of men to experience nostalgia than of women. Fred Davis (1979) believes that it is a result of more complicated life trajectories in men who worked in different places, served in the army, migrated more actively than women, while the surroundings of women were rather stable, non-changeable, and women’s identities did not require a lot of adaptation to new circumstances. Moreover, nostalgia is typical of immigrants. Thus, nostalgia carries not only individual, but rather group, or collective character.

Starting from the middle 1940s due to the contribution of phenomenologists such as Alfred Schütz (1945) and later James Phillips

(1985) and E.B. Daniels (1985), a salient feature of nostalgia has become evident: earlier, nostalgia was associated with the homesickness, namely,

- with space, however, now it is seen as a phenomenon related to time.

Alfred Schütz paid attention to the fact that nostalgia is a result of the lost intimacy with the former surrounding which is very difficult to re-establish (‘The Homecomer’, 1945).

Psychoanalytical tradition has made nostalgia its object of observation, and many psychoanalysts understand nostalgia within the framework suggested by Sigmund Freud in his paper “Mourning and Melancholy” 3

(1999) as a reaction of psyche to the loss of the beloved object.

In general psychoanalysts point out at the utopian consciousness of

Russians, utopian disposition of their mind. This utopian stance is nutured by the Russian folklore and literature. Utopia is something that did not exist, does not exist and will never exist, which is very unanimous to the emotion of nostalgia, because its main content is longing for the past which is irreversible. There are a few works which discuss namely irreversibility of the past and its understanding by an individual, because some people disagree to believe in irreversibility of the past, and their nostalgia takes “abnormal” shape. These themes are discussed in the works of Elena Pourtova (2013), Vladimir Tsivinsky (2014) and Svetlana

Boym (2001).

Recently I have met a person from Zimbabwe who got his medical education in Eastern Germany in 1980s. He expressed an acute longing for the Soviet past in the German Democratic Republic. He maintains expanded connections with the Eastern Germans who are unanimous in their great disappontment with the new, non-socialist circumstances of their lives. The nostalgia for the Soviet past in the former GDR is acute.

Germans have become pioneers in producing films on these dramatic losses, for example, ‘Good bye, Lenin!’ (Barney, 2009) that features the collapse of the the GDR and the unification of two Germanies. There is an episode in the film showing how the main film character meets a taxi 4 driver looking like the national GDR hero, the first astronaut Sigmund

Werner Paul Jähn. Although the taxi driver says that he is not an astronaut, the audience understands that he is (in reality Sigmund Jähn did not work as a taxi driver). Like many Eastern Germans this film character has undergone a dramatic downshifting. This episode is a symbol of losses experienced by citizens of the collapsed socialist societies of Europe.

My region of interest

I have chosen a specific geographical region as an object of my interest.

This specific region has a common historical destiny, the histories of its peoples have been interwoven for one thousand years. This region includes Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, the European part of Russia and

Ukraine, however, technically it would be difficult for me to study the situation within Ukraine. I mention Ukraine because I must be historically truthful.

Starting from the 13th century the terriotories of modern Lithuania,

Belarus and Ukraine made up a political unity called the Grand Duchy of

Lithuania. In 1386 the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of

Lithuania were united through the marriage of monarchs and existed as a largest European state till the end of the 18th century.

Due to its political weakening it was divided between Prussia,

Austro-Hungary and the Russian Empire in the end of the 18th century. In the Russian Empire this region was known as the Pale of Settlement 5 where Jews were allowed to settle while in Russia itself their presence was prohibited.

Poland and Lithuania existed as independent countries only between 1917 and 1939.

In the mid-20th century Poles and Lithuanians became victims of the

Soviet regime atrocities such as mass shooting of the Polish elite in Katyn in 1940 and crushing of Vorkuta labour camp revolt in 1953 where the majority of political prisoners were Lithuanians and Ukrainians (David

Satter, 2014).

Taking into account these tragic events, it is obvious that such countries as Poland and Lithuania experience high rates of Russophobia. Also, they were among the most active strugglers against the Soviet regime.

However, for the last quarter of a century being independent Catholic countries they experience depopulation, degradation of living standards and extremely high rates of suicides. Following the theoretical thought of

Durhkeim these countries are in a situation of anomie. In such a situation people turn to the past and begin to idealize it.

The previous studies on the topic

Two Polish sociologists Wieliczko and Zuk in 2003 discovered strong symptoms of nostalgia among middle-class, middle-aged Poles, “the social group which is commonly thought to be a chief beneficiary of the process of market transition”. All opinion surveys report vast majorities 6 of respondents with positive attitudes towards socialism, but since these are scorned in the public discourse and the media, they are subject to self-censorship (Post-Communist Nostalgia, Introduction: 5).

The editors of the Post-Communist Nostalgia volume point out regarding

Poland that “what people remember about socialism is a pride in production and in their labour and also a sense of being a part of a project that was modern and directed towards the general good. When people speak angrily about Poland being turned into a “Third World” country, their anger is about economic decline, about what they see as a two-sided coin of the dependency and exploitation, and about being transformed not into the (even more modern) capitalist future but back into a pre-socialist past” (Introduction: 5). This “trauma of deindustrialization” has brought about alcoholism, drug abuse, homelessness and the feminization of poverty. According to Frances Pine (2002:111), “[s]ocial memory is selective and contextual. When people evoked a ‘good’ socialist past, they were not denying the corruption, the shortages, the queues, and the endless intrusion and infringements of the state; rather they were choosing to emphasize other aspects: economic security, full employemnt, universal healthcare and education” (Introduction: 5).

Izabella Main describes trends of understanding the Communist past by the modern Polish society. According to her, one of the most important sociological studies on the memory of Communism in Poland was 7 undertaken by Piotr Kwiatkowski. Having conducted and analyzed focus group discussions in several cities, Kwiatkowski concludes that there is a nostalgia for the past (and not just for one’s youth) for at least five reasons: (1) financial stability; (2) better prospects for self-realization; (3) the system of social welfare; (4) old forms of sociability contrasting with the high intensity and interpersonal competition after the changes; and (5) order, lower criminality, fewer scandals, a feeling of security at home and on the streets, as well as a positive image of the world in the mass media

(even if false) (Main, 2014: 99).

According to Irmina Matonyte (2013), Lithuania remains the most conservative in its attitudes to the Soviet past. Lithuanian elites maintain the discourse of anti-nostalgia for the USSR. The studies of the public opinion on this topic in Lithuania are not multiple.

In understanding the situations in Poland and in Lithuania I also rely on the work of James Mark who has written The Unfinished Revolution:

Making Sense of the Communist Past in Central-Eastern Europe (2010) in which he concentrates his attention on official policies of the post-Soviet countries aimed at reconciliation with their Soviet past.

Since the very collapse of the USSR in 1991 an independent Russian sociological agency with well-established reputation called

Levada-Centre has been conducting monitoring of nostalgia for the USSR in Russia. In 2000 President Putin summarized the results of their studies 8 for many years in one phrase. Being interviewed by the newspaper

Komsomolskaya Pravda he was asked about his attitudes to the Soviet

Regime. During the rule of his predecessor Boris Yeltsin the attitudes to the Soviet regime were acutely negative. To the surprise of many, Putin said: “Anyone who does not regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart”. He then added that anyone who wanted it restored “has no brains”

(David Satter, 2014: 208).

On April 25, 2005, in his address to the Federal Assembly, Putin described the fall of the Soviet Union as ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century”. With this remark the era of anti-Soviet revulsion in Russia came to an end (David Satter, 2014: 209).

For a quarter of a centure Levada-Centre has been posing two questions to Russian people: Do they regret the collapse of the USSR and if they want its restoration.

The representative polls of Levada-Centre (see electronic link 1 & 2) show that at present (December 2014) 54% of the Russian population regret the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, much less percent of the population would like its restoration within the same borders. Taking into account that for the last 8 years Russia invaded two former republics of the USSR (Georgia and Ukraine) and significantly spoilt the relations with her neighbors, the project of restoration looks irrealistic.

Among significant findings of the Levada-Centre we can mention 9 noticable Stalinization of the Russian population. Stalin re-gained his status as a national hero. However, Russian sociologists point out, that nostalgia for the Soviet past is typical mostly of people with low level of education who are older than 45.

In reality, nostalgia exists not only among those who experienced the

Soviet past

The Age of Modernity witnesses commodification of everything: time, future, risks, expectations, memories are commodified. They are the objects of merchandazing. Consumption shapes the mode of life and the horizons of the future.

Arjun Appadurai in his book Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimentions of

Globalization (1996) discovers the nature of “armchair nostalgia” or nostalgia “divorced from memory”. He argues that in the society of consumption and consumerism two mechanisms are used for the purposes of merchandazing: fashion and nostalgia. Moreover, there are special techniques which help in shaping nostalgia for the present. People are taught to miss those things which they never lost. This cultivation of nostalgia for the present shapes the mood of ephemerality of everything, and consumption society tried to replace duration with ephemerality. The main slogan of the Modernity: “Buy it now, because tomorrow not the product will be out-dated, but the period itself will be out-dated. You won’t be able to say that you belonged to that time. You won’t be able to 10 share this identity.”

This “armchair” nostalgia, or ersatz-nostalgia is a good solution for those who consider themselved freed from any kind of tradition, who do not want to be enslaved by tradition. Svetlana Boym in her book The Future of Nostalgia (2001) mentions that the Americans do not want to be bound with any tradition, especially with the British one, because this will destroy their state legitimacy. However, they experience a psychological need for longing for the past. They are nostalgic of dinosaurs, because dinosaurs do not belong to anybody. It is nobody’s tradition. This is how

Svetlana Boym explains obsession of Americans with such films as

“Jurassic Park”.

Although I was cautioned by my colleagues that it is not always reasonable to extrapolate theories created in the consumption society to other regions of the world, ersatz-nostalgia for the Soviet past (such nostalgia which does not presume experience of living in the USSR or in another former Soviet country) is wide-spread among the young generations of Russians, Belarusians and other nationalities. There are numerous psychoanalytical works on this topic, and I see its examples on the regular basis on the Internet. Here is the comment left by the Youtube user “The girl who believes in Love” four months ago. It is about the singer Marina Kapuro who was popular in the USSR : 11

Due to the “Voice” project the modern generation can familiarize itself with such a talanted and wonderful singer!!! I have not lived in the USSR, but from a distant point of view that time seems to me a kind of idyll!

There were so many harmonious whole personalities! People worked honestly, were simple and sincere... Enormous thanks to Marina for her singing!

I see one of my main tasks in understanding the nature of this ersatz-nostalgia for the Soviet past taking into account that it does not seem to be a tool of effective merchandizing. I agree with Svetlana Boym who suggests that this form of nostalgia is the result of the break with tradition, but its relation to consumption in the post-Soviet countries is not obvious; the mechanism of its emergence and existence does not seem to be a product of time commodification.

It is possible to suggest that there are other mechanisms of forming such a nostalgia, similar to those described by Vamik Volkan and his colleagues in their book The Third Reich in the Unconscious (2002) where they talk about unconscious transmission of collective trauma from one generation to another. Perhaps, there are identical mechanisms of transmission of the

“collective satisfaction”. To my mind the most natural way is the family oral tradition when representatives of different generations share their ideas about life - the past and the present, and share their visions of the future. 12

Nostalgia plays a key role in the formation of the project of the collective future. Nowadays in the Russian-language cultural space two discourses are competing: one elevates the Soviet past, and the second one denigrates it and presents the Soviet past as Gulag for everybody. The youth have to restore or formulate their own vision of the past from different dissociated fragments of information in order to take it to the future.

It is essential for me to realize who is involved in the production and promotion of these two contesting visions of the past. I have some preliminary ideas about the group who is responsible for the production of denigrating project of the Soviet past. This is a group of intelligentsia, who lacked the feeling of freedom under the Soviet regime. The most militant intellectuals who openly juxtaposed themselves to the Soviet regime formed the dissident circles. The most intriguing feature of those circles is the majority of their representatives were Jewish. It is rather ironic, because Jews are blamed for imposing Bolshevism on Russia, and they are blamed for the collapse of the USSR. Any liberal Russian politician is called a Jew in a pejorative way.

The famous Russian sociologist Alexander Zinoviev was a dissident himself. He openly spoke out about his dissatisfaction with the Soviet regime, and was forced to leave the USSR and to settle in the West

Germany. In his famous book Homo Soveticus (1983) he witnesses that 13 he was the only ethnical Russian in the camp of dissidents from the

USSR in Munich in the early 1980s.

In spite of that fact that he was a dissident, Alexander Zinoviev became the first alternative ideologist of the greatness of the Soviet regime.

Zinoviev realized the greatness of the Soviet regime, when he saw the

Western reality and realized that the methods of restriction of freedom in the West were even worse than in the Soviet Union. Particularly, he was struck by the lack of freedom of speech. This author is a landmark for those who are involved in the creation of both discourses (elevating and denigrating).

Having analyzed the materials in the library of the University of Ottawa on Homo Sovetius I have understood that the majority of authors use this expression coined by Zinoviev in a pejorative sense. This term is actively used by those producing the denigrating discourse on the Soviet past.

In reality, Zinoviev described the new identity of individuals formed in the USSR: according to him, Soviet people were characterized as highly intellectual, creative, cynical, critical, insensitive and skeptical in relation to any type of ideology, and able to survive under most severe conditions.

In fact, he described a new formation of people, introduced by Nietzsche in his concept of Superman.

Thus, the only tension between Zinoviev’s vision of Homo Soveticus and the popular positive vision of the Soviet people which can be found on 14 the Internet today is cynicism of the former versa high morality of the latter.

If to turn to the ideas of psychoanalysis at this point it would be productive to examine the image of this idealazed Soviet individual

(Homo Soveticus which is now used mostly in pejorative sense by those authors who definitely have not read Zinoviev’s book) as a lost object. In this framework, nostalgia for the Soviet past is seen as longing for the idealized image of Self, which constitutes the lost object.

Bibliography

1. Appadurai, Arjun, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimentions of Globalization, University of Minnesota Press,1996, 229 p. 2. Barney, Timothy. 2009. “When We Was Red: Good Bye Lenin! And the Nostalgia for the “Everyday GDR”. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 6 (2): 132-151. 3. Boym, Svetlana, The Future of Nostalgia, Basic Books, 2001, 432 p. 4. Daniels, E.B., ‘Nostalgia: Experiencing the Elusive’ in Descriptions edited by Don Ihde and Hugh J. Silverman, 1985, pp. 76-90. 5. Davis, Fred, Yearning for Yesterday. A Sociology of Nostalgia/ The Free Press. A Division of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., New York, Collier Macmillan Publishers, London, 1979, 146 p. 6. Freud, Sigmund, ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916), London the Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1999: 243-258. 7. Halbwachs, Maurice, On the Collective Memory, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago,1992, 249 p. 8. Mark, James, The Unfinished Revolution: Making Sense of the Communist Past in Central-Eastern Europe, Yale University Press, 2010, 312 p. 9. Main, Izabella. 2014. ‘The Memory of Communism in Poland’. Remembering Communism: Private and Public Recollections of Lived Experience in South-East Europe. Edited by Todorova Maria, Dimou, Augusta, Troebst, Stefan. Budapest, Central European University Press: 97-117. 15

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Electronic sources: 1. http://www.levada.ru/24-12-2007/lasedov-nostalgiya-po-sssr (Nostalgia for the

USSR - in Russian, access: April 16, 2015);

2. http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2102515 (Comparison of the polls on the nostalgia for the USSR conducted by VCIOM and Levada-Centre in 2013 - in Russian, accessed: April 16, 2015).