The embarrassing centenary: reinterpretation of the 1917 Revolution in the official historical narrative of post-Soviet Russia (1991–2017)

Abstract

This article traces the reinterpretation of the Revolution(s) of 1917 in the official historical narrative of post-Soviet Russia. Its construction is an essentially political process, as its discursive hegemony depends on how it fits into the symbolic landscape created by various social actors. The task of reinterpretation of the revolution is complicated by its centrality for two conflicting patterns of memory politics – the critical “working through” the memory of a traumatic and criminal past, and consolidation of the nation/nation-building. There are different coalitions of mnemonic actors behind each of these patterns. The author reveals different strategies of dealing with dilemmas involved in employing these patterns in the 1990s and the 2000s, and argues that until now the Russian imcumbent elites have not succeeded in reframing the Russian Revolution as a great, though tragic, episode of the national past. In the context of the centenary commemorated in 2017, the incumbent elite seem to have come back to the idea of “reconciliation and accord” that was coined by Boris Yeltsin’s team in the mid-1990s. However, its integration into the apologetic narrative of “the 1000-year Russian state” totally changes its meaning, as it rejects “working through” the traumatic past.

Keywords:

• official historical narrative
• memory politics
• public commemoration
• 1917 Revolution
• symbolic politics

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the anonymous reviewers for useful comments and suggestions. She also thanks Kathleen E. Smith for her attentive reading of the draft and highly important feedback.

Notes

1 There is a rich research literature about construction of the myth of the October Revolution in the USSR (Heer 1971; Corney 1998; Petrone 2000; Sherlock 2007; Rolf 2013; Koposov 2011; Tikhonov 2017; Torbakov, forthcoming).

2 In the 1990s the victory over Nazism was represented as a heroic feat of the people that was achieved not due to the Communist regime, but in spite of the Stalinist repressions. In the 2000s it became a story of triumph focused on the idea of Russia as a great power (see Malinova 2017).

3 This kind of social and political interaction is studied under various labels, such as politics of the past (Art 2006; Heisler 2008), politics of memory (Shevel 2011; Bernhard and Kubik 2014), politics of history (Torbakov 2011), memory games (Mink and Neumayer 2013), political uses of the past (Zakošek 2007), memory politics (Mälksoo 2009), etc.

4 For more detailed analysis of competing discourses about the Revolution in the 1990s, see Malinova (2015, 36–56).

5 This is a quotation from “The Internationale,” the anthem of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

6 My analysis of Putin’s speeches reveals that evolution was actually gradual and took place around 2002–2003. In his talk on Constitution Day in December 2002, Putin argued, “For more than 10 years we have habitually said the words ‘the new Russia.’ But if we think carefully, we are saying it about a country with a 1000-year history … ” Praising “Yeltsin’s” constitution, Putin then turned to the narrative about “the new Russia” by saying, “We are talking about a country in which democracy and freedom of speech was gained through much suffering of the state and society” (Putin 2002). But five months later in his Address to the Federal Assembly, Putin made his famous statement about “maintaining a state spread over such a vast territory” and “keeping up a strong presence on the international stage” as a “truly historical feat” of the Russian people (Putin 2003).

7 In 2007, on the 70th anniversary of the Big Terror, Putin and Patriarch Alexij II visited the commemorative place in Butovo where mass execution took place in 1937 (without giving speeches). In May 2017 he participated in consecration of the church devoted to the “new martyrs” (novomucheniki) at Sretensky monastery in Moscow. The ceremony was a part of ROC’s commemoration program for the centenary of the revolution.

8 During his presidency Dmitry Medvedev backed out of this rule several times. He addressed the issue of political repression in his programmatic article “Vperiod, Rossia”, in the videoblog published on the Day of commemoration of the victims of political repression in 2009, and in the interview for “Izvestia” before the 65th anniversary of the Victory over Nazi Germany in 1917. But he never did this in the official public speeches (Malinova 2015, 171–173).

9 The substitution was not very successful. The new holiday has not become popular and was instead appropriated by nationalists and right-wing extremists (Zuev 2013). Since 2012 the incumbent elite did its best to marginalize their major initiative – the Russian March, and to develop its own symbolic repertoire of the holiday. The idea to open the Monument to Reconciliation in Kerch on the 4th of November probably points in this direction.

10 According to the recent survey of Levada-Center 10 percent of respondents share the opinion that “the October Revolution played very positive role in the Russian history”, 38 percent held that it was “rather positive”, 25 percent said that it was “rather negative”, 6 – “extremely negative”, and 21 percent found it difficult to answer (Oktiabr’skaia revoliutsia 2017). So, for almost half of the Russians the revolution is still “the great” historical event.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academic Fund Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2017-2018 [Grant No. 17-01-0034] and by the Russian Academic Excellence Project “5-100”.