Undrowned Story: The Landscape on the Volgo–Baltic Waterway as the Volga Hydropower Cascade Submersions Memorial

Alevtina Borodulina

European Review, 2022, vol. 30, issue 4, 519-531

Abstract: Vast territories along the Volga River basin were intentionally submerged in the 1930s to 1980s for the sake of creating the Volga hydropower cascade. Many people suffered displacement, and hundreds of cultural and historical sites were destroyed or left under water. However, these events were never recognized as a national tragedy in the official public narrative. This article is dedicated to a grassroots project aimed at creating a ‘lieu de mémoire’ for this difficult heritage by preserving the ruins of a submerged church. The ruins marking the transformed landscape bear memories of the events that accompanied that transformation as well as the role of an individual and local community in commemorating the traumatic events. Intentionally preserved ruins are extremely rare for Russia, yet they powerfully link tangible and intangible heritage and give voice to repressed narratives.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:eurrev:v:30:y:2022:i:4:p:519-531_7

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in European Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().