Preliminary communication
https://doi.org/10.5673/sip.55.3.3
Sacred Landscape in Modern Russia’s Cultural and Historical Policy Through the Eyes of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region Residents
Elena Okladnikova
; Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Department of Sociology and Religious Studies, St. Petersburg, Russia
Levon Kandaryan
; Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Department of Sociology and Religious Studies, St. Petersburg, Russia
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to publish the results of the qualitative sociological
research carried out among the residents of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad
Region on the possibility of using the marker monuments of their “small homeland”
sacred landscape in the creation of Russia’s state cultural policy. The research was
done by the method of narrative interview. Based on the typological content analysis
of the 179 interview transcripts, i.e. the respondents’ competence level in the volume
and depth of historical memory, all survey respondents were classified into three major
groups: 1) experts (knowledgeable about the subject of our study), 2) improvisers
(respondents who showed interest in the subject of our study but were scarcely
competent in historical materials) and 3) ignoramuses (respondents who showed
negative or indifferent attitudes to the research of the sacred landscape monuments).
As a result, the authors have reached the following conclusions: 1) according to our
respondents, the sacred landscape of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region has a
high potential for Russia’s cultural policy; 2) as our respondents’ most symbolically
and emotionally loaded part of their “small homeland” landscape, the socio-cultural
phenomenon of the sacred landscape requires the State’s delicate and careful attention;
3) in our respondents’ opinion, despite its declarations and documents, the
State’s cultural policy is, in reality, still mainly focused on the public opinion management
from the Soviet era; 4) such ideological orientation excludes the sacred landscape
of our respondents’ “small homeland” from the State’s modern cultural policy.
Keywords
sacred landscape; the cultural policy of the Russian Federation; historical memory; narrative interview; public opinion
Hrčak ID:
190674
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2017.
Visits: 2.162 *