Transformation of the perception of the Civil War in Karelia by participants and eyewitnesses of events (according to the memoirs and autobiographical materials of the 1930s–1960s)

Abstract

The author shows the special significance of the collected in the 1930s–1960s, both published and stored in the Scientific Archive of the Karelian Science Сentre (SA KarRC RAS), autobiographical materials and memoirs about the Civil War and allied intervention in Russian Karelia. The process of transforming the collective memory of participants and eyewitnesses of these dramatic events under the influence of the officially constructed Soviet discourse was covered. The relevance of studying historical experience and mechanisms of refraction and change in images of the past, the "image of the enemy" that took place over the years in the memory of witnesses of the era was noted. The origin of the used texts was established, their specifics were considered. At the same time, it was noted that the analyzed memories and materials cannot be considered a historical source of exclusively personal origin, since they inevitably bear the seal of the time when they were written or recorded by the collectors of "Stories about the Civil War in Karelia." Identified using the case study method, the "living evidence" of the past allows you to turn to the "human dimension" of time, seeing it from a historical and anthropological perspective.