Collective vs. Family Remembrance: Evidence From Two Russian Betrayals

Sinara Gharibyan

CERGE-EI Working Papers from The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague

Abstract: Is family or collective remembrance of the distant past more powerful in shaping current behavior? To answer this question, I link two historical episodes from Armenian history separated by a century. During both World War I (WWI) and the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, Russia was anticipated to provide military support to Armenia, its ally, but failed to do so. I demonstrate that the memories of the first Russian betrayal were activated after the second war. I identify family memory of the first betrayal using distinct West Armenian (Ottoman Armenian) surnames and proxy collective memory through locations renamed to commemorate lost Armenian localities during WWI. The difference-in-differences (DiD) approach shows that both family and collective remembrance negatively affect pro-Russian parties’ vote share, with all the conventional assumptions of DiD verified. Family remembrance influences behavior through traumatic recall, whereas collective remembrance operates via social capital.

Keywords: Collective memory; Family remembrance; Voting; Social capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D7 J15 N44 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-cis, nep-his, nep-soc and nep-tra
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