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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2022
Abstract
The chapter considers the problems of sociocultural trauma caused by the repressions of the 1930s in the Urals. The reason for analyzing the traumatic experience of the Stalinist repressions is to explain the individualization of this trauma and to address the problem of commemorative practices in Soviet society. Koldushko focuses on the principal “painful issues” of imprisonment trauma, such as arrests, the conditions of life in prisons and camps, the forms of torture used against the repressed people, the difficult experience of returning from prison, and, finally, reflexive practices, including reflections on who was guilty for their suffering. Koldushko comes to the conclusion that the traumatic experience of the repressions was characterized as a personal trauma.
Keywords: sociocultural trauma, imprisonment trauma, Stalinist repressions, commemorative practices, narrative approach, traumatizing experience
It is very unfortunate that people live at home and they are not concerned with the revolution at all, but we had to suffer most of all. From the letter of Ya.G. Polozhuk, a special settler, to his wife March 29, 1932, Pydol village, Cherdyn District, Ural region
Introduction
The problem of sociocultural trauma and the strategies to overcome it have become ingrained in scientific discourse. With respect to studying social changes, the medical term trauma was first used by sociologists (Eyerman 2013, 121-138; Alexander 2012, 5-40; Merton 1966, 299-313; Khlevnyuk & Giesen 2010, 112-117; Sztompka 2001, 6-16; Smelser 2004, 31-59). At present, the terms social trauma and cultural trauma are widely used by historians and culturologists (Aarelaid-Tart 2004, 63-72; Assmann 2014; Koposov 2011). According to Lorina Repina, “the concept relation ‘memory – identity – trauma’ is now one of the top requested tools of analysis in social sciences and humanities” (Repina 2012, 9). It should be noted that scientific works devoted to the problems of historical memory and coping with sociocultural trauma are more focused on theoretical, conceptual and methodological constructs (Eyerman 2013, 121-138; Assmann 2014; Sztompka 2001, 6-16). In Russia, the channels aiming to build the historical memory and strategies of overcoming the sociocultural trauma of generations are at an early stage of study. The areas of study are consistent with the largest social catastrophies of the 20th century (Oushakine & Trubina, 2009), with special attention being paid to the mass repressions in the USSR in the 1930s to 1940s.
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