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Nostalgia for the Soviet Past in the Post-Soviet Countries

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Nostalgia for the Soviet Past in the Post-Soviet Countries 1 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.
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