Narratives of the Regional Cultural Distinctiveness and the Unity of Russian Cultural Space

The article is based on field research conducted in the Krasnodar, Kaliningrad and Orenburg regions in 2022–2024, its goal is to comprehend to what extent narratives about “one’s own land” are able to produce a separate historical and cultural space and entail the fragmentation the national territory, which is connected by a common language, settlement system, and shared history. As a theoretical framework for the analysis, the concept of narrative identity is used, focusing on the meaning of culture with its extensive repertoire of texts, images and symbols for personal and collective self-identification. Regional and municipal museums’ exhibits, interviews with their directors and guides, as well as with journalists, experts, and local government representatives served as the primary information sources. In conducting a comparative analysis of narratives, the authors limited themselves to the three most representative examples in each region. A detailed analysis of the storytelling about “one’s own land” made it possible to highlight the general principles of structuring and presenting information, as well as to determine the storylines of the narratives that perform integrating functions. The authors come to the conclusion about the retroactive, rather than proactive, nature of the narratives of regional distinctiveness, their orientation towards the restoration of the lost order, continuity and heritage, while linking local historical memory with the historical time of the country. The reconstruction of the positive connection between the past, present and future significantly limits the disintegrating tendencies embedded in the idea of “one’s own” and the narratives of the regional distinctiveness, ensuring the unity of the Russian cultural space.

Russian regions, cultural space, regionalism, identity, historical memory, narratives, homeland, local patriotism