The Historical Memory of Russian Society: Towards an Agonistic Model

Abstract

This paper argues that Russian memory politics are not aligned with the cultural diversity of Russian society. Russian historical memory has traditionally been dominated by a “Moscow-centric” narrative that virtually ignores the ethnic and regional versions of the past. This raises the question of decolonizing Russian historical memory and of rethinking it on more inclusive foundations. In this regard, the author proposes a move towards the agonistic mode of memory. The latter has two basic features: (1) inner pluralism, i.e., the possibility of coexisting conflicting historical narratives in the public sphere, (2) orientation toward a common discursive space which does not allow the debate about the past to become a zero-sum game.