Problems of Values in Memory and Reenactment Studies

Abstract

The article provides a comparative analysis of the “memorial boom” and historical reenactment value systems. It is proved that cartography of differences in the practices of commemoration is possible only at the intersection of the study of value orientations and the imposition of memory frames. The very concept of reenactment is extremely indicative for characterizing contemporary attitude towards the past: it marks a significant departure from the constructivist paradigm of memory studies, which is being replaced by a partial return to Rankean realism and at the same time (in the spirit of “post-truth”) a paradoxical recognition of the impossibility of such a return. This contradiction, as well as the ambivalence of the relationship between expert knowledge of the past and popular culture, which does not recognize the status of experts, is softened in the movement of historical reenactment due to a set of conventional rules that can vary depending on the situation. A fundamental feature of historical reenactment is weak reflexivity, which contributes to the displacement of ethical pathos and value-rational judgments of the 1980s-1990s “memory boom” by emotional-affective and traditional actions out of habit.