Intergenerational Construction and Transmission of Memory and Support for (Non-)Democracies: The Cases of Czechia, Russia, and beyond

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The papers in this panel examine the impact of socialization and historical memory construction on contemporary political attitudes, which has broader implications for democracies and autocracies in the region and beyond. Using a wide palette of qualitative, historical, and quantitative methods, the papers by Vera Beloshitzkaya and Diana Rafailova open “the black box” of family and its role in memory construction that shapes the political attitudes of younger generations, which has received limited scholarly attention to date, while James Krapfl and Galina Bogatova trace the changes in public memory and political culture in Russia and beyond. Working on Czechia, Vera Beloshitzkaya examines the private construction of communist memories by the parents and how these memories are associated with support for democracy in their children, whereas James Krapfl explores the generational transformation of the public commemoration of 1989 and surrounding debates about the meaning and performance of democracy in six post-communist countries. Galina Bogatova traces the transformation of familial metaphors in Russia’s political culture that the Russians are socialized into. Finally, Diana Rafailova empirically shows how parental socialization under communism has a long-lasting effect on the political attitudes of the younger generation of Russian immigrants who did not experience autocracy first-hand. She finds that the effect of memory on political attitudes is mediated by whether parents think positively or negatively of life in the Soviet Union. Taken together, these studies contribute to the scholarship on nostalgia, legacy, socialization, and political culture in the region.

Sub Unit

• Politics/Law

Chair

• Vera Beloshitzkaya, U of Salzburg (Austria)

Papers

• Memories of Communism and Support for Democracy in Czechia: Evidence from a Mixed-Methods Study - Vera Beloshitzkaya, U of Salzburg (Austria)

• Generational Transformation in Commemoration of the Central European Revolutions of 1989 - James Krapfl, McGill U (Canada)

• Intergenerational Transmission of Imperial Legacies and Familial Structures in Russia's Political Culture - Galina Bogatova, Union College

• Preferences for Democracy, History, and Russian Background -

Discussant

• Alexandria Wilson-McDonald, Otterbein U