SUMMARY:

Elizabeth Gessat-Antstett focuses on the social cadres of memory in post-Soviet Russia. She addresses memorial practices of the former inhabitants of the city of Mologa in the Yaroslavl’ region of Russia. The city was evacuated and later flooded in 1941 as the Soviet authorities proceeded with the construction of the Rybinsk reservoir. Gessat-Antstett approaches memorial practices of the members of the former Mologa community from the point of view of ethnology, attempting to assess not only the forms of memory but also the logic and the categories that underlie the memorial discourse.
Consisting of mostly people beyond 60 years, the Mologa group institutionalized itself in 1998. Most members of the group share traumatic experiences of the Soviet past. The group attempted to move their memories from the private to the public space through the construction of territorial identity and memorial practices, such as the local museum. Annual meetings to mark the day of flooding help create the identity of a “small homeland” for members of the community. Also, community members visit the location of the former city covered by water, as well as request liturgies.
According to the author, memorial practices of the Mologa community reveal the predominantly emotional, non-rational foundations of the memorial discourse. Transgressing the boundary between history and myth, this memorial discourse appeals to symbols and affection, not to numbers and facts. Noting the importance of immaterial forms of commemoration in post-Soviet Russia, the author focuses on the connection between memory and food in the context of annual commemorations that are usually concluded with a common meal.
For commemorations of Mologa specific historical contexts are largely irrelevant, although the memory of Mologa also stresses the topic of victimization of the local population during the period of Stalinism. Nevertheless, this victimization does not presuppose a search for the guilty. The author sees this silence about the historical responsibility in the context of the lack of Volgolag memory and the general lack of discussion of historical responsibility in the post-Soviet society. Avoiding references to the historical contexts that serve as markers of national identity, local memory, such as the memory of the Mologa community, represents a search for refuge from big national and supranational narratives.