Keywords
How to Cite
Abstract
The issue of the memory of collective trauma has rarely been analyzed in cross-cultural research. Urban trauma, in particular, is a relatively unknown concept. Never before has the memory of urban trauma of the cities of St Petersburg and Nijmegen in relation to the Second World War been compared in the academic realm. This article sets out to create a juxtaposition of St Petersburg and Nijmegen in terms of their Second World War traumas and the way these traumas are represented and commemorated in both cities. The authors examine the meaning-making role that experts play within the remembrance culture of St Petersburg and Nijmegen. A thick description of conducted field research and interviews with experts are used in order to thoroughly compare the experts’ approach to the remembrance cultures. This article aims to compare and translate the way in which different types of memory of trauma relate to the same event. It establishes that although there are distinct differences between the two cities, experts deal with researching the commemoration of trauma in a similar manner. This study reveals uneasy questions, blind spots and taboos of commemorating urban trauma in both Russia and the Netherlands.
References
Adamovich, A. & Granin, D. (1982). A Book of The Blockade. Moscow: Raduga Publishers.
Alexander, J.C. (2004). Toward a Theory of Cultural Trauma. In J. C. Alexander, R. Eyerman, B. Giesen, N. J. Smelser, and P. Sztompka (Eds.) Cultural Trauma andCollective Identity (pp. 1–30). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bambrough, R. (1994). Gilbert Ryle: Collected Papers. Philosophy, 69(269), 376-378. Doi:10.1017/S0031819100047124
Boukharaeva, L. M., & Marloie, M. (2015). A New Civil Right Won Under the Soviet Regime. In: Family Urban Agriculture in Russia (pp. 47-73). Springer, Cham.
DiCicco-Bloom, B., & Crabtree, B. F. (2006). The qualitative research interview. Medical Education, 40, 314-321. Doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2929.2006.02418.x
Eyerman, R. (2011). Intellectual and cultural trauma. European Journal of Social Theory, 14(4), 354-367. Doi: 10.1177/1368431011417932
Eyerman, R. (2012). Harvey Milk and the Trauma of Assassination. Cultural Sociology, 6(4), 399–421. Doi: 10.1177/1749975512445429
Eyerman, R. & Bartmanski, D. (2011). The Worst Was the Silence: The Unfinished Drama of the Katyn Massacre. In R. Eyerman, J.C. Alexander, and E.B. Breese (eds.) Narrating Trauma: On the Impact of Collective Suffering. New York: Paradigm.
Flick, U. (2002). Qualitative research in psychology: A textbook. London: Sage.
Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books.
Gerhardt, I. (1946). Het carillon. In Uitgeverij C.A. Mees Wereldbibliotheek N.V Het Veerhuis. Santpoort / Amsterdam (oorspr. 1945).
Ginkel van, R. (2011). Rondom de stilte. Herdenkingscultuur in Nederland. Amsterdam.
Haan, De. I. (1997). Na de Ondergang: De herinnering aan de Jodenvervolging in Nederland, 1945-1995. Den Haag: SDU Uitgevers.
Halbwachs, M. (1980). The collective memory. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Hill, C. E., Knox, S., Thompson, B. J., Williams, E. N., Hess, S. A., & Ladany, N. (2005). Consensual qualitative research: An update. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52, 196-205. Doi: 10.1037/0022-0167.52.2.196
Hill, C. E., Thompson, B. J., & Williams, E. N. (1997). A guide to conducting consensual qualitative research. The Counseling Psychologist, 25, 517-572. Doi: 10.1177/0011000097254001
Hirsch, M. (2012). The Generation of Post Memory: Writing and Visual Culture After theHolocaust. New York: Columbia University Press.
Janssen, B. (2005). De Pijn Die Blijft. Nijmegen: Vantilt.
Kirschenbaum, L. A. (4 September 2006). The Legacy of the Siege of Leningrad, 1941–1995: Myth, Memories, and Monuments. Cambridge University Press.
Legg, S. (2005). Contesting and surviving memory: space, nation, and nostalgia in Les Lieux de Mémoire. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 23(4), 481-500. Doi: 10.1068/d0504
Lincoln, Y. S. & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic Inquiry. SAGE.
Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.saint petersburg.com/monuments/heroic-defenders/
Neal, A.G. (1998). National Trauma and Collective Memory: Major Events in the American Century. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe.
Nora, P. (1989). Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire. Representations, 26, 7-24.
Pennebaker, J., & Gonzales, A. (2009). Making history: Social and psychological processes underlying collective memory. In P. Boyer & J. Wertsch (Eds.), Memory in mind and culture (pp. 171–193). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Rosendaal, J. (2014). The destruction of Nijmegen, 1944: American bombs and German fire. Nijmegen: Vantilt Publishers.
Smelser, N.J. (2004). Psychological Trauma and Cultural Trauma. In J.C. Alexander, R. Eyerman, B. Giesen, N.J. Smelser and Sztompka (Eds). Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity (pp. 31–59). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Verzetsmonument “De Vaandeldrager.” (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.tracesofwar.nl/sights/331/Verzetsmonument-De-Vaandeldrager.htm
Vivian, B. (2017). “Chapter 3 - Regret: George W. Bush’s Gorée Island Address.” Commonplace Witnessing: Rhetorical Invention, Historical Remembrance and Public. Culture. Oxford: Oxford Scholarship Online.
Woods, E. T. (2019). Cultural Trauma: Ron Eyerman and the founding of a new research paradigm. American Journal of Cultural Sociology, 7, 260-274. Doi: 10.1057/s41290-019-00071-0
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.