Provincial Echo of the Russian Civil War

Abstract

The gap between post­Soviet Russia and the communist past was demonstrated by a decree of the President of the Russian Federation B.N. Yeltsin’s “Establishing the Day of Agreement and Reconciliation” (1996), according to which the 7th of November remained a public holiday, but the essence of the celebration that was intended to symbolize the victory of the working classes over their exploiters, was changed to the reconciliation and unity of various layers of the Russian society. Later, the holiday of the 7th of November was cancelled completely; instead, President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin in 2004, by his decree, approved a new holiday ­ the Day of National Unity, which is timed to events that were much more remote and date back to 1612. For the first time, Russia celebrated a new public holiday on the 4th of November 2005. In contrast to the historical victory of the USSR over fascist Germany, the February and October revolutions of 1917, the Civil War, foreign intervention, the role of V.I. Lenin, I.V. Stalin and other revolutionary leaders continue to provoke heated debates in Russian society, serving as a source of controversy and conflict. Conscious of the potential danger of this subject, the authorities prefer to refrain from potentially dangerous and threatening political stability actions (burial of the body of VI Lenin, etc.), prefer to put everything off and pass on a solution of painful problems to society to future generations. The indistinct position of the federal center on the events of Russian history of the twentieth century, its silence on the themes of the October Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War in Russia led to numerous scandals with new monuments (Mannerheim, Kolchak, Krasnov, etc.) and other contradictory and diverse in their form consequences. In the rural areas, the situation is often determined by the level of education, character traits and psychological characteristics of representatives of the local administration, as well as their sympathies or antipathies of the parties to the Civil War. The article provides several examples of various manifestations of the current “provincial echo” of the Civil War in Siberia (Nizhneingashsky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Baikal region) and in the Urals (the city of Okhansk, Perm Territory).