The politics of memory in the legal regulation in a multicultural region

structure, characteristics and key management narratives

Resumo

A principal factor in the consolidation and harmonisation of any society is a responsible and respectful attitude towards its past. The representations of the past play a significant role in shaping the content of value orientations and the boundaries of identities of different groups. Furthermore, they serve to clarify the context and framework of their interaction. In addition to images and representations of the past, social memory encompasses the activity of their creation, reproduction, and actualisation at the level of culture, individual social institutions, groups, and communities of different levels. This aspect of social memory is referred to as 'memory politics'. For ethnic groups, the origin and sense of a shared past play a pivotal role in fostering solidarity and shaping perceptions of identity and relations with other groups. This is particularly pertinent in regions with multicultural populations, where the study of memory politics and the role of the past in shaping identities and relations with other groups is of paramount importance. This article employs two case studies – namely, the historical reserves of Sviyazhsk and Bolgar, which have been inscribed on the UNESCO Cultural Heritage List – to examine the characteristics and consequences of the politics of memory pertaining to the regional past in the multicultural region of the Republic of Tatarstan (Russian Federation). The article presents a conceptualisation of the notion of memory politics as a set of narratives about the past, the channels of transmission and the actors who disseminate them.