Issue 11 (2013, 3) Summary

ARTICULT #11 (3-2013)  
  Public history

SUMMARY

ACADEMIC, POPULAR AND PUBLIC HISTORY
UDC 93+32.019.5
Author: Sheveleva Anastasia, Post-graduate student, History and Theory of Culture department at Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH, Moscow, Russia), e-mail: anasymip@gmail.com
Summary: Historical science isn't objective. The process of creating a historical text is almost always influenced by discourse and transfers this influence. So all historical texts - both professional and populist - can be seen as a valuable source for analyses.
Keywords: public history, popular history, critical analyses  

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PUBLIC HISTORY IS NOT A DISCIPLINE. Interview: Jerome de Groot, University of Manchester, prof.
UDC 93+94+32.019.5
Summary: There are numerous ways of transmitting visions of the past nowadays besides the professional historians’ works. We’ve discussed the reasons why historians can’t ignore this part of public sphere with its’ active processes of constructing and consuming different forms of knowledge about the past with Jerome de Groot, professor in the University of Manchester and the author of “Consuming history”. Public history presents us with numerous examples of how both top-down and bottom-up processes of organizing visions of the past work. At the same time mass culture products are able to undermine dominating narratives about history and create new meanings of linearity and chronology.
According to de Groot, knowledge is something “that occurred within society, that we all have a contribution to” – and that is what public history and popular history practices are demonstrating us. These practices call to reconsider both the place of a historian and the ways in which professional knowledge about history is being transmitted.
Keywords: public history, nostalgia, temporality, historical novel, historical series, historical re-enactment, alternative history, comics, authenticity, materiality, corporeality  

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RIGHTING WRONGS: DOCUMENTARY THEATRE AS HISTORY'S TRIAL
UDC 94(470)"20"+32.019.52+323.22
Author: Sklez Varvara, MA Cultural Studies, Ph.D. student, Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH, Moscow, Russia), MA Public History. Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences — University of Manchester, e-mail: varvar.sk@gmail.com
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3572-5621
Summary: “Moscow trials” project staged on the 1-3 of March, 2013 at Sakharov Centre by Milo Rau was devoted to the lawsuits over organizers of “Caution! Religion!” and “Forbidden Art” art shows and “Pussy Riot” punk group. Being a rather private event, it gained Internet audience’s attention after it had been interrupted with the appearance of immigration police, Cossacks and police special forces. This didn’t lead the performance’s disruption and didn’t cause any immediate negative consequences. Nevertheless, analysis of the discussions in social media proves problematizing conventional notions of “conditionality” concerning this project.
This case demonstrates the process of reestablishing boundaries of visions about theatre’s “conditionality” and its relation to “reality”. “Documentality” then appears as an effect in viewer’s perception constituting his position and providing its inseparable link to modern political and cultural context.
Keywords: theatre, Moscow trials, documentality, presence, art’s limits, reality, conditionality  

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PATRIOTIC WAR OF 1812 IN THE NARRATIVES OF “POPULAR CULTURAL MEMORY”
UDC 94(470)"1812"
Author: Chistyakova Victoria, PhD, associate professor, National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, e-mail: vchistyakova@hse.ru
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3527-4576
Summary: The forms and ways of political use of events of the past are analyzed by the example of popular images of the war of 1812. For this purpose the concept of "popular cultural memory" which is the notion of cultural memory developed by Jan Assmann and applied then to the phenomena of popular culture is used.
Keywords: popular cultural memory, history, mass culture, cinema  

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RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM FOR THE VISITORS AS CADEMIC FORM OF THE MUSEUM WORK
UDC 069.15
Author: Kornoukhova Irina, research fellow, State Historical Museum (Moscow, Russia), e-mail: irinakorn-shm@ya.ru
Summary: The article presents an experience of building relations of the Museum as part of the research infrastructure with participants of the club movement as TA of the Museum that needs special interaction with the scientific community. We show results of this interaction, a number of problems and perspectives by the example of the work of the seminar in the State Historical Museum "Scientific reconstruction of the historical and cultural heritage"(Leader Irina Kornoukhova).
Keywords: visitors in Museum, popular science, research process, reconstruction  

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“COLD CASE” SERIES: HISTORY, HISTORICAL POLITICS AND RETROACTIVE SOCIAL CONTROL
UDC 791.43-2+94(73)
Author: Lvovsky Stanislav, MA Public History, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences — University of Manchester, e-mail: halfofthesky@gmail.com
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8491-5368
Summary: Articleexplores representation of history in the “Cold Case” TV series. “Cold Case” presents particular view on history and epistemology of history being at the same time an instrument of history politics. Metaphors of «historian as detective» and «detective as historian» constitute particularly complex flexible structure here, which makes “Cold Case” a unique and potentially informative subject of inquiry.
Keywords: history, historiography, public history, historical politics, TV series, Cold Case, police procedural, social control, politics of memory, mass culture  

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HISTORICAL CHARACTERS IN THE INFORMATIONAL PROGRAMS OF THE MAJOR RUSSIAN TV CHANNELS
UDC 32.019.51:654.19+32.019.52
Author-1: Davydov Sergey, PhD in philosophy, National Research University – Higher School of Economics, Associate professor, vice-dean of Media communications faculty, Associate professor, Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH, Moscow, Russia), e-mail: sdavydov@mail.ru
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-8455-9976
Author-2: Logunova Olga, PhD in sociology, Associate professor, National Research University – Higher School of Economics, e-mail: olga.logunova@gmail.com
ORCID ID: 0000-0003-2893-4764
Summary: The proposed article is based on the results of content analysis of informational TV programs of major Russian TV channels. Historical persons mentioned in these programs are considered in general context. Main conclusion is that some of the references are made in the context of fixing the characters move from the present to history. Other references are connected with the process of legitimization of current events by puting them into historical context.
Keywords: content analysis, informational television programs, image of the past, public history  

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“SUBJECTIVE HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE” AS A WAY OF THINKING: A SPECIAL CASE OF RUSSIAN MODERN LITERATURE
UDC 32.019.52+821.161.1+94(470)"20"
Author: Moroz Oxana, PhD in Cultural Studies, Assistant Professor, Department of History and Theory of Culture Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH, Moscow, Russia), e-mail: oxanamol@gmail.com
Summary: The article analyses the strategies of narrative philosophy of history and their usage in area of public history. Modern Russian literature was selected as the main source. Art writing is discussed as an example of authorial analytic discourse, appealing to which significantly expand the idea of presentation the historical experience.
Keywords: literature, subjective historical experience, public history, narrative philosophy of history  

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RELATION TO ITS OWN PAST: RETROMANIA IN CONTEMPORARY BRITISH POPULAR MUSIC
UDC 784.75+94(410)"1952/..."
Author: Kolesnik Alexandra, Second year MA student, Master’s degree program ‘History of knowledge in comparative perspective’, Faculty of History, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Research Assistant at the Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities (IGITI HSE), e-mail: aleksa-kolesnik@yandex.ru
Summary: This article is dedicated to analysis of current state of British popular music that was capaciously named as ‘Retromania’ by famous English music critic Simon Reynolds. The author explores a model of the referencing with the Past, its components and features of cultural forms. In the focus of research are processes that redirect and radically change the structure of musical statement.
Keywords: mass culture, popular music, contemporary British culture, the Past, nostalgia, retro  

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ROBIN HOOD: THE LEGEND AS THE HISTORY
UDC 791.43-24
Author: Isaev Egor, MA in public history, methodologist in National Research University Higher School of Economics, e-mail: viceimho@gmail.com
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-9899-0169
Summary: The article is an attempt to analyze Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood", who instrumentalized the history in his draft. It's curios to do it in order to understand what is necessary to consider in case the historical film can be watched as authentic, can be regarded in such way? Can we say that the film is really an attempt to reconstruct the history or just a "decoration", which is more convenient for the author to conduct the dialogue with the audience?
Keywords: instrumentalization history in the media, Robin Hood, Ridley Scott, the narrative in history, historical accuracy, the popular cinema  

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CHINESE HISTORICAL NARRATIVES IN THE GLOBAL MEDIA AGE
UDC 94(510)
Author: Vladimirova Alina, Lecturer, World and Russian History Department, National Research University Higher School of Economics, e-mail: avvladimirova@hse.ru
Summary: An emergence of China as a new center of power causes hot debates about its possible positive and negative impacts on the system of international relations. In an attempt to explain the present and predict what is awaiting the world in the future, the humankind traditionally refers to the history. Meanwhile, in the age of new media and a rapid development of technologies this branch of knowledge inevitably undergoes changes, for example, the role played by public history is gradually increasing. For China, which focuses on soft power and the country image in the international arena, this aspect is very important, although for many centuries there is already a quite special, different from Western worldviews, relation to the history in the Chinese society. Obviously, there is a need to explore and subject to comprehensive analysis a number of features that characterize a process of a formation of Chinese historical narratives.
Keywords: public history, media, China, politization of the history, international relations, historical narratives  

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MEMORY REPRESENTATION OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR BY HISTORIANS OF DIFFERENT GENERATIONS
UDC 94(47).084.8
Author: Serykh Anna, Lecturer, Samara State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, e-mail: serykha@gmail.com
Summary: The paper deals with the representation of the Great Patriotic War by the historians of two generations who got a school education in 1960-1980s. The author analyzes the peculiarities of the memory of the remote/recent past.
Keywords: generation, the Great Patriotic War, the memory, history  

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