Chris Hann (Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung, Halle an der Saale)
As is well known, the USSR implemented a new ritual calendar imbued by the principles of scientific atheism and socialist internationalism. After the Second World War, state rituals were similarly transformed in other socialist countries in Eastern Europe.
In this lecture, from the baseline of my own observations and a few other studies of the late socialist period, I shall explore the changes which have taken place in the last two decades. The salience of religion and national identity is well illustrated in “Victory Day” celebrations as presently performed in the Russian Federation (9th May). More generally, I am interested in how rituals reflect and help to “make” the social and political order. Is this relationship the same under capitalism as it was under socialism? Do the main participants and their audiences have different attitudes today, compared to those of the socialist era? Have activists as well as the great majority of citizens abandoned “futurist” mobilization in favor of commemoration and Erinnerungskultur? Are the major spectacles always inherently conservative, such that although both form and content may show changes, the function always remains the same, namely the legitimation of power holders? Were these rituals efficacious under socialism? Do they succeed in spreading enchantment today?