[RETRACTED] Soviet Past as a Lacuna of Memory: the Specifics of the Border Region

Abstract

THE ARTICLE HAS BEEN RETRACTED DUE TO THE USAGE OF DATA PUBLISHED IN ANOTHER JOURNAL WITH A REFERENCE TO ANOTHER GRANT.

REASON FOR RETRACTION: AUTHOR'S REQUEST.

DATE OF RETRACTION: 06/15/2020

The subject of the study in the article is the strategy of rethinking the Soviet past in the Kaliningrad region. The research methodology is D. Olick 's process-relational methodology and experience in the study of the trivialization of M. Sturken 's past. Kaliningrad region is a unique region, showing a combination of tourist and migration practices, superimposing various layers of historical experience and historical memory. In recent years, Kaliningrad has seen a project of symbolic rethinking of Soviet architecture and its replacement by the reconstruction of German Gothic, characteristic of Konigsberg. In the sphere of public opinion, such changes are correlated with the re-creation of the historical memory of the pre-war Konigsberg, the approval of political initiatives to rename individual streets and settlements. At the same time, such processes are due not to political, but to economic reasons, in particular, the orientation of Kaliningrad due to its geographical position on the European market and the demand of the German past as a subject of the tourism industry. The author comes to the following conclusions: in modern Russian society there is a request for symbolic recoding of the Soviet past, a big role in this process is played not by political, but by economic and sociocultural practices, the example with Kaliningrad allows to rethink the traditional opposition of patriotism and collaboration, marking a complex of motives of designing the "convenient" past.