Repetition and Difference: Rethinking the Soviet ...

Introduction from the Editor-in-Chief

Abstract

by Ryhor Miniankou

The processes characteristic of post-Soviet / postcommunist societies are often described with the help of the term “(social, historical) nostalgia”. It is obvious that the forms of manifestation of nostalgia are determined by cultural contexts, the place that nostalgia bearers occupy in the present. No matter how we may evaluate the current restoration efforts regarding the Soviet past we need, first of all, an analytical approach to the problem, namely the understanding of the inevitability of this process, analysis of how it fits into the past, present and future, and the search for models for its adequate explanation. It is in this vein that the authors of the papers of this issue address the problem of the Soviet and post-Soviet.