Browsing by Subject "mythology"
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(2023)This thesis explores the role of the history of the Gulag in the contemporary mythology surrounding the Great Patriotic War in the Russian Federation, proposing a semiotic consideration to this phenomenon in Russian memory politics. While mythology has surrounded the Soviet victory in the Second World War since its conclusion, the thesis focuses on its most recent iteration during the Putin regime and briefly into the 2022 Russian war on Ukraine. To look more closely into this vast and amorphous mythology, the author narrows in on the historical considerations on the role of the Gulag during the Great Patriotic War. In particular, the thesis delves into the online materials of the Federal Prison Service (FSIN) published between 2009 and 2022 to evaluate how, through symbols and historical narratives, the Federal Prison Service of Russia weaves itself into the mythology of the Great Patriotic War. Utilizing the Roland Barthes seminal work on mythologies, the thesis concludes that FSIN reproduces previously established signifiers of the Great Patriotic War, drawing upon the war’s ‘matrix of signification.’ FSIN’s historical practices are a part of its relationship to the power centre, both to stake out a historical claim, or ‘place identification’ in the broader history of Russia’s modernization, and to signal loyalty to the centre by amplifying its cornerstone narratives on the Great Patriotic War.
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(2022)In this thesis, I attempt to answer the question of whether it is possible to reflect the modern psychological theory of culture of honour to the Late Copper/ Early Bronze Age period of the Eurasian steppe zone. Furthermore, how does this affect social structure and can archaeological evidence prove it. To study culture of honour, Indo-European sources and ethnographic research on mobile pastoralism are also examined. Through a sociocultural approach, this thesis strives to reconstruct the sociocultural background and changes originating from the Yamnaya. In this approach, theories from anthropology, ethnography, sociology, social psychology, and science of religion interact. Furthermore, sources associated with early Indo-European culture (e.g., social structure and mythology) are included. Essentially, this study aims to link the Yamnaya culture with the sociocultural theory of culture of honor. A focus of this thesis is the study of anthropomorphic stone stelae associated with the Yamnaya and adjacent cultures. The area where the stelae have been found consists of the modern countries of Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Moldova, North Macedonia and Russia. Moreover, general knowledge about grave goods, burial rituals, osteological and genetic materials contribute to the overall reconstruction and interpretation process. A comprehensive outline of Yamnaya's ideological, social, and behavioral aspects is attempted through the use of comparative methodology. In order to accomplish this, the archaeological materials and their symbolic meaning are interpreted using the theoretical frameworks provided and compared to later Indo-European traditions and ethnographic studies on mobile pastoralism. Using theoretical frameworks and comparative method, this thesis demonstrates that the sociocultural theory of culture of honor can be reflected in archaeological materials. The reflections of sociocultural behaviour can be argued to be present in burial rituals, grave goods, osteological, genetic and most of all in the anthropomorphic stone stelae.
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