Historical Collective Trauma: Specifics of Acceptance and Overcome
Abstract
The purpose of the research is to analyze the main approaches to interpretations of the concept of ‘historical trauma’, and to outline the main dimensions of historical collective traumas and approaches to overcoming them using the example of modern Europe and Russia.
Scientific novelty: the main interpretations of the concept of ‘historical trauma’ and the related concept of ‘historical memory’ are defined; interdisciplinary approaches to the study of historical collective traumas are outlined; a comparison of the main narratives related to historical collective traumas in Europe and Russian societies is carried out.
Conclusions: it was found that the study of ‘historical trauma’ is relatively new for historians and has an interdisciplinary nature. This concept has numerous variations (‘cultural trauma’, ‘collective trauma’, ‘intergenerational trauma’, ‘colonial trauma’). On the one hand, this complicates its clear definition, and on the other hand, it allows us to understand important nuances and a certain specialization of research on collective trauma within the framework of own approaches of sociology, psychology, philosophy, cultural studies, history, and even biology.
In European countries, attempts are being made to overcome historical collective traumas by creating an appropriate historical narrative without avoiding ‘uncomfortable’ topics.
Russian society has chosen the other way of overcoming the historical collective traumas, the main of which are associated with the Second World War and the Cold War. Instead of a constructive acceptance and overcoming of historical collective trauma, the image of the new/old external enemy (the USA, the collective West, NATO, and now Ukraine) formed in Russia, and this not only contributes to the compensation of old injuries but also forms new ones.
It was determined that there are different strategies for overcoming historical collective traumas. It was found that Europe demonstrates a constructive approach (historical collective trauma turns into a historical narrative), and Russia – a destructive one (formation of an aggressive ideology). The proposed examples of overcoming historical collective traumas in Europe and Russian societies illustrate not so much the variety of approaches and strategies of ‘working on trauma’ as the specifics of these societies.
Funding. The article was prepared within the framework of the European Union project under the Erasmus+ program, directly by Jean Monnet 620386-EPP-1-2020-1-UA-EPPJMO-MODULE TEMPUS (‘Tailoring European Memory Politics for Peacemaking in Ukrainian Society’).
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