War and We: Horizons of cultural memory in memorial texts of the late Soviet period

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the contents of entries made by Soviet citizens in visitors' books of the three largest memorial complexes in East Germany devoted to the events of World War II: the National Museum Buchenwald, the Seelow Heights Memorial Site and Museum, and the Museum of the History of the Unconditional Capitulation of Fascist Germany at Berlin-Karlshorst. On the basis of these sources the author draws conclusions regarding Soviet memorial culture of the postwar period and the interrelationship between the memorial practices of Soviet citizens abroad and cultural diplomacy. The most important distinctive features of these samples of memorial discourse were publicity, ritualism, performativity, emotional saturation, and the displacement of the historical context by topical issues of the present and the future.