Collective memory of student youth in the post-modern era

Abstract

The lack of consensus in society on the most important problems of history negatively affects the formation of the collective memory of the younger generation. The socialization of millennials (in the terms of N. Howe and W. Strauss) has specific features that become the main tool for the formation of a new collective identity. In the postmodern era, society faces a number of risks and needs recommendations to mitigate them. The purpose of this article is to reveal the features of the collective memory of student youth on the example of the perception of the events of the Great Patriotic War (WWII) in the conditions of a super-tolerant postmodern society. The following concepts were chosen as the methodological basis of the research: social construction (P. Berger, T. Luckmann), the concept of collective memory (M. Halbwachs, P. Nora, A. Assmann), as well as the post-structuralist direction of postmodernism (Z. Bauman, J. Baudrillard). The empirical base of the study was formed by the results of a large-scale research project of the Russian Society of Sociologists “Russian Students on the Great Patriotic War”, which has a fifteen-year history. Processing the data obtained has required using the software product Vortex 10. To study the peculiarities of young people’s perception of the events of the war years, the authors have chosen problematic issues, actualized by modern socio-political processes. The results have revealed the prerequisites for the alienation of generations (lack of discussion of events with relatives), as well as some inconsistencies in the perceptions of young people about the role of the countries participating in the Second World War to the real historical reality. The novelty of the results was predetermined by the identification of features in the views of civilian and military youth concerning controversial issues of history, explained by differences in the educational environment. In addition, the differences in ideas about patriotism in the two youth groups are shown and attributive markers of the concept of “patriotism” are proposed. The results obtained may be of interest to researchers studying youth problems.