Transformation of attitudes toward the history of the USSR in the regional press of the perestroika period

Saenko Angelina Vyacheslavovna ORCID: 0000-0003-1285-2342 Junior Researcher, SIC of Social and Humanitarian Informatics of the I. Kant BFU 236041, Russia, Kaliningradskaya oblast', g. Kaliningrad, ul. Nevskogo, 14 angelinasaenko08@gmail.com

Introduction

The glasnost policy of the perestroika period served as an impulse to transform the historical discourse adopted in the Soviet press. In addition to revising approaches to the country's pre-revolutionary past, the so-called "white spots" in the history of the USSR were at the center of the discussion. The paradoxical nature of the situation in the field of social sciences was noted by A. Yurchak: "The discourse of perestroika and glasnost revealed many unknown facts, forced a critical look at many phenomena of the Soviet past, at the same time contributing to the creation of new myths. As a result of the incredible enthusiasm for new publications, new topics, comparisons and ideas appeared in the public language, which led to a change in the dominant discourse and consciousness" ^{[14, p. 30]}.

According to M. V. Novikova, the term "historical politics" is legitimately applied to the process of conceptual revision of Soviet history during the years of perestroika. Following the newspaper Moskovskie Novosti, which was considered the flagship of Glasnost, "in the regional (Gorky) press of the perestroika period, two directions in historical issues were vividly traced – a rethinking of the history of Soviet society in accordance with the political doctrine of the "renewal of socialism" and the disclosure of the "white spots" of history during the rehabilitation of victims of political repression in the 1930s-50s" ^{[8, p. 11]}.

In the Kaliningrad region, interest in the past had its own peculiarities during these years, mainly it concentrated on the regional history of the pre-war period. If in other regions of the USSR the "pre-Soviet" history was mainly understood as pre-revolutionary, then for the history of the Kaliningrad region the milestone took place in 1945, when, after the end of the Great Patriotic War, the northern part of the former East Prussia became part of the USSR. In the process of forming a "new historical community" in the annexed territory – the "Soviet people" ^{[10, p. 4]}, a policy of memory was implemented, expressed in the recognition of the former province of Germany as a "robber stronghold of the German military and reaction" and the proclamation of a course to "expel the Prussian spirit" ^{[7, p. 14]}, which implied refusal to study the pre-war history of the region. During the years of perestroika, this approach was overcome, which formed the main content of the public discussion on historical topics. Due to this specificity, less attention was paid to the "white spots" of Soviet history in the local press. Nevertheless, they played an important role, as they formed part of the overall political agenda of reforming socialism and ways to further develop the country.

The purpose of this work is to trace the content and features of the transformation of attitudes towards Soviet history in the regional party and Komsomol press of the Kaliningrad region during the period of perestroika.

The source base of the study

The sources of the study were two of the most significant newspapers in the region at that time – Kaliningradskaya Pravda and Kaliningradsky Komsomolets.

The daily Kaliningradskaya Pravda is the first Soviet newspaper in the region. Already 1.5 months after the arrival of the first echelon with migrants in the region, by order of the regional civil affairs department dated October 9, 1946, a printing house, publishing house and editorial office of Kaliningrad Pravda were established at the regional department of local industry, and two months later, on December 9, 1946, the first issue of the newspaper was published. Since March 1947, the newspaper became the official organ of the Kaliningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU (b), which largely determined the style and nature of publications. The newspaper retained the status of the official publication of the regional committee of the CPSU and the regional executive committee during the period of perestroika, only in November 1991 it was transformed into a closed joint-stock company ^{[2, p. 137]}.

The newspaper was designed for a wide audience and was the most widely circulated periodical in the region, its average daily one-time circulation increased from 96 thousand in 1985 to 180 thousand in 1991. On the one hand, the newspaper broadcast the ideological and political attitudes of the party and the Soviet state, on the other, it had to focus more and more on the interests and respond to the requests of the mass reader in conditions of glasnost.

The Kaliningrad Komsomolets newspaper was created on the material and production base and editorial office of the German-language newspaper Novoye Vremya, published in Kaliningrad in 1947-1948, shortly after the end of the repatriation of East Prussian Germans to Germany ^{[12, p. 53]}. The first issue of Komsomolets was published on October 29, 1948. The period of perestroika became a time of significant changes for the publication. Until 1987, the newspaper was published three times a week (about 150 issues per year) on 4 A3 pages. The largest circulation was achieved in 1985 – 28,525 copies. Since January 1988, its issue has become weekly (52 issues per year), and the newspaper began to be printed on 12 pages of the same format; one-time circulation averaged 20,000 copies. Until October 1989, the newspaper was an organ of the Komsomol Regional committee, and then received organizational and financial independence, in October 1990 it was re-registered under a new name - Prospekt Mira.

Research methodology

The analysis of newspapers was carried out in the Max QDA 2020 content analysis program. A detailed algorithm for using the program for text analysis is considered in the works of I. M. Garskova ^{[3, 4, 5]}. In addition, the experience of computerized analysis of periodicals was taken into account, which was summarized in articles published in the journal "Historical Informatics" in recent years ^{[1, 6, 9, 11, 13]}.

By tagging and typing texts, the Max QDA 2020 program allows you to analyze both primary, qualitative, and secondary, quantitative characteristics, which makes it possible to determine the dynamics of discussing issues of the Soviet past in the press.

The content analysis included several stages. First of all, based on an expert assessment, articles on the historical problems of the Soviet past, i.e. events from 1917 (the revolution in Russia) to 1985 (the beginning of perestroika), were selected from the entire array of publications of Kaliningradskaya Pravda and Kaliningradsky Komsomolets. The publication bank was recognized using the Abby Fine Reader program and converted to a text format. The total body of the text was 1,109 pages or 2,121 thousand characters.

At the second stage, a category system was developed based on a preliminary study of articles and a frequency dictionary created in the MAX QDA program. The third stage included the calculation of the occurrence of categories separately (the unit of analysis is a sentence) and the joint occurrence of categories (the type of "intersection" of codes within 1 paragraph). At the fourth and final stage, the interpretation of the obtained results was carried out.

The category system

To perform the tasks of analysis based on a preliminary study of the object of study, the following system of categories was developed (Fig. 1):

Fig. 1. The category system

With the help of a lexical search for the indicators indicated in Table 1, autocoding was performed in an array of selected newspaper publications. In order to avoid ambiguity in understanding some indicators, especially for historical periods, the context of the word found in the text was viewed before autocoding. For example, when searching for the word "hero/heroism/heroic", only indicators related to the period of the Great Patriotic War were marked up (Table 1).

Table 1. Category system

In order to track how much the categories reflect the content of newspapers, the program's "% code coverage" function was applied. It varied in the range of 62-73% (69% on average), which shows sufficient coverage of the newspaper's content (table 2).

Table 2. Percentage of code coverage

Analysis of the frequency of occurrence of categories in texts

In general, during the entire period of perestroika, 521 publications on the subject of Soviet history were published in the two named newspapers. In the distribution of publications by year, two peaks can be noted (Fig. 3) associated with the jubilee celebrations of 1985 (the 40th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War) and 1987 (the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution). At the same time, according to the number of publications, there is clearly a tendency for the newspaper to reduce its attention to the history of the USSR by 2.5 times in Kaliningrad Pravda, and by more than 8 times in Kaliningrad Komsomolets (Fig. 2). This dynamics was associated with a shift of attention from the domestic to the pre-war (German) history of the region.

Fig. 2. Dynamics of publications about the Soviet past during the period of perestroika

When comparing publications in Kaliningrad Pravda and Kaliningrad Komsomolets, attention is drawn to the thematic similarity of the published material. Both newspapers paid the most attention to the story about the main stages of Soviet history (34-36%) and issues of preserving historical memory (25%).

Table 3. Matrix of frequency of occurrence of categories in "Kaliningradskaya Pravda" and "Kaliningradsky Komsomolets"

In general, newspapers paid the most attention to the description of the main stages (events) of Soviet history (36% of the total number of mentions) and subjects of the historical process (27%). The largest share among all subcategories belongs to the description of the events of the Great Patriotic War (28%) (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Frequency of occurrence of categories

Stages of Soviet history

The Glasnost era influenced the change of the historical narrative about the Soviet past. What stages of Soviet history were in the focus of the newspaper's attention during this period? As shown in the diagram (Fig. 4), the leading topic that newspapers drew attention to during Perestroika was the Great Patriotic War (78%).

Fig. 4. The category "Stages of Soviet history"

The publication of articles dedicated to the memory of the heroic and tragic pages of the Great Patriotic War continued throughout the entire period of perestroika. Most of the mentions of this subcategory were related to the celebration of the 40th anniversary of Victory in 1985. At the same time, the context of describing the events of the war was changing. In 1985-1987, newspapers talked about the heroism of the Soviet people, emphasized pride in veterans of the front:

"They came to the Eternal Flame yesterday before anyone else. They are front—line soldiers. Memory brought D. V. Romanin here. Time cannot obscure the greatness of the feat of famous and unknown heroes of the Great Patriotic War, all those who defended the freedom and independence of our Motherland. The fallen and the living."

Svirin R. Flowers at the obelisk // Kaliningrad Komsomolets. 1985. May 10. (No. 57). p. 1.

In 1988-1991, the discussion of problematic issues came to the fore, primarily about preserving the memory of the war, including among young people:

"And how many more unkempt soldiers' graves are scattered around the country, including in our region."

Kameneva T. On the 45th anniversary of the Great Victory. About valor, about exploits, about glory. Review of readers' mail // Kaliningradskaya Pravda, 1990. April 20 (No. 92). p. 3.

In general, the number of publications on the problems of Soviet history began to decrease by the end of perestroika (Fig. 5). It is noteworthy that the focus of newspapers, especially in the jubilee years, remained traditional topics for the formation of knowledge about the Soviet past, while, in addition to the last war, interest in the events of the October Revolution and the period of post-war reconstruction, which, in relation to the Kaliningrad region, coincided with the time of formation and formation of the region. On the other hand, the historical topics that were most vividly discussed in the central press (Stalinism and political repression of the 1930s or the transformations under the rule of N. S. Khrushchev) were lost in the general array of the historical narrative of the Kaliningrad press.

Fig. 5. Frequency of occurrence of subcategories of "Stages of Soviet history"

(excluding the subcategory "The Great Patriotic War")

The subcategory "Revolution" reached its peak of mentions in 1987 (Fig. 6), which is associated with the 70th anniversary of the events of 1917. The coverage of this event in the press was extremely solemn:

"The 70th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution marked the beginning of a number of decisive events for our history. Among them are two Decrees of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR in January 1918 on the organization of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army and the Workers' and Peasants' Workers' Fleet. This year is also the year of the 70th anniversary of the Lenin Komsomol. The Army and the Komsomol. They are connected with our Soviet history. They are also connected with our present day."

"Soldiers are not born for war ..." // Kaliningrad Komsomolets. 1988. February 20 (No. 8). p. 7.

By 1991, the theme of revolution had become more a symbol of a passing era than a topic of discussion. There were no publications of discussion materials about the 1917 revolution, and both newspapers followed the previous traditional approach in telling about it. And only occasionally negative statements about the results of revolutionary conquests were printed on the pages of newspapers:

"Now ... is not the time to celebrate the merits of the October Revolution, when, following the precepts of its inspirers, the country reached the "handle" and found itself in a severe economic crisis."

Will the 74th anniversary of October be celebrated? // Kaliningrad truth. 1991. September 25 (No. 190). p. 2.

The history of the Civil War did not receive critical assessment or reinterpretation during the period of perestroika, when it was discussed in newspapers, fragments from the works of V.I. Lenin continued to be quoted:

"The working class received a great lesson from the civil war; the revolutionary education of the proletariat took a step forward in one day in a way that it could not have taken in months and years of a gray, everyday, downtrodden life."

The beginning of the revolution in Russia // Kaliningradskaya Pravda. 1985. January 22 (No. 18) p. 2.

In publications devoted to this period, special attention was paid to the "enemy grin" of capitalist countries that organized military intervention against the Soviet republics, in which

"troops from 14 countries took part, including England, France, Germany, Poland, the USA, and Japan, who will openly and actively help the armies of counter-revolutionaries."

Ignatov A. Revelations. Currency for "free Siberia" // Kaliningrad Pravda. 1987. June 21. (No. 143). p. 3.

The third important subcategory for the mass historical consciousness of Kaliningrad residents is "Post-war reconstruction". Newspapers published information about the problems of resettlement to the Kaliningrad region, the restoration of buildings and communications destroyed during the war. The largest number of mentions was associated with the anniversary date – in 1986 it was 40 years since the formation of the region and the beginning of its mass settlement by Soviet people. These were often enthusiastic assessments of the way they had traveled:

"There is no trace of the fires and ruins you know from the forty-fifth year. The city, as they say, has indeed been reborn from the ashes."

Guards Avenue. Pages of the feat // Kaliningrad Komsomolets. 1987. April 8th. (No. 43). p. 3.

Since 1986, previously inaccessible information about the German population of East Prussia, who lived in the region until 1948, began to appear in the press:

"After the end of the war, several tens of thousands of German civilians remained in the territory of the present Kaliningrad region. And the attitude of our soldiers towards them was not hostile."

And it started like this ... // Kaliningrad Pravda. 1986. June 12. (№136). C. 2.

By the end of perestroika, the topic of post-war reconstruction began to be mentioned primarily as an excuse to pay attention to the problems of urban improvement:

"No, the clean-up and Sunday work on the improvement of the city were forgotten early or almost forgotten. Early on, housing authorities with local councils relaxed their demands on tenants and labor collectives for maintaining residential buildings, urban economy, and the same cultural centers in a normal state."

Tronin V. Our common concern. With love to the city // Kaliningrad Pravda. 1991. April 11. (No. 73). p. 1.

The subcategory "Building the foundations of socialism" was not widely reflected in the regional press, only in 1987-1990 several articles on this period were published. While the central press discussed the topics of repression and the political structure of the Soviet state, the editorial offices of Kaliningrad publications published materials on collectivization and industrialization only in the context of describing the biographies of individual residents of the region:

"The year is 1929. It was a difficult time of troubles for the village. Some of the peasants began to leave the collective farms. There were almost half of them in our village. The dispossessed elements raised their heads, they wanted to get even for past insults. Taking advantage of people's illiteracy, they launched propaganda, forced them to kill cattle."

On the 70th anniversary of October. Life is not according to the textbook! // Kaliningrad Komsomolets. 1987. October 28th. (No. 130) p. 2.

If we turn to the cloud of words of the subcategory "Building the foundations of socialism" (Fig. 6), we can see that among them the triad that has become dogmatic prevails: industrialization, collectivization and the elimination of illiteracy as the main task of the cultural revolution.

Fig. 6. The word cloud of the subcategory "Building the foundations of socialism"

The period of the "Khrushchev thaw" also did not find a detailed description in the press. Of the events of the 1960s, only Yuri Gagarin's space flight was mentioned.

The proximity of the "stagnation era" to the period of perestroika also did not contribute to a large number of publications. At the same time, the estimates were neutral at first, and by the end of perestroika they were increasingly critical:

"Twenty—year-old skeptics, thirty-year-old candidates of sciences who have gone into janitors or watchmen, just so as not to lie and not dodge. The heirs of Stalin, the children of stagnation, the hope of perestroika — all this is also “us”. "I, you, he, she are a whole country together, a close—knit family together," and now the popular singer is still shouting into the microphone at the limit of her vocal cords."

Agisheva N. From the point of view of a critic: cinema reflects on Stalin and Stalinism. // Kaliningrad truth. 1988. September 17th. (No.215). p. 3.

Subjects of the historical process

The category of "Subjects of the historical process" is necessary to determine what role was assigned to the masses in newspaper publications and how the importance of personalities in history was described. It can be seen from the diagram in Fig. 7 that priority with a gap of 2 or more times in full accordance with the theory of historical materialism was given to the masses, and only in 1987 the subcategory of "Personalities" reduced this distance, amounting to 2/3 of the number of mentions of the masses. Last but not least, such an anomaly was associated with the celebration of the anniversary of October and frequent reminders of the honored Bolsheviks and heroes of the 1917 revolution.

Fig. 7. Frequency of occurrence of the subcategories "Masses" and "Personalities"

Which historical figures were the focus of the newspaper's attention? To answer this question, based on the frequency dictionary, a system of second-level subcategories was created with references to specific historical persons. Figure 8 shows a cloud of names of historical figures who have appeared in texts more than 10 times.

Fig. 8. The word cloud of the subcategory "Personalities"

The newspaper's attention was focused on Soviet statesmen and politicians (62%, Fig. 8, blue), of which more than half of the mentions were of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. In second place is Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, whose name often flashed on the pages of newspapers in 1989-1991 in connection with the discussion about renaming the city of Kaliningrad. The most discussed political figure in the central press, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, was not so significant for Kaliningrad residents, although statements about his cult of personality were quite harsh:

"Given Stalin's repressive style of government within the country, many states of Western bourgeois democracy were seriously afraid of exporting the revolution to their countries. This, of course, also contributed to the isolation of the Soviet Union."

The Second World War: truth and fiction // Kaliningrad Pravda. 1989. September 1, 1989. (No. 201). p. 1.

Publications in the press also contributed to a change in the attitude of residents of the region towards the main Soviet figures, which created the ground for public confrontation and public conflicts:

"On February 21, I was on the 109th route bus. Buying a ticket from the driver, I saw two portraits of Stalin facing the salon. I couldn't resist telling the driver that it was hard for me, an older person, to see that reminder of what I had experienced, wouldn't it be better to keep these portraits at home, since I really want to have them in front of my eyes? In response, the driver stopped the bus and demanded that I get off. Our dispute ended in a scandal..."

Portrait behind glass // Kaliningradskaya pravda. 1988. March 15 (No.62). p. 3.

A fifth of the mentions (21%, fig. 8, brown) of all personalities were heroes of the Great Patriotic War, primarily those who performed feats on the territory of the Kaliningrad region. At the same time, the commanders of the Soviet army: G. K. Zhukov, A. M. Vasilevsky, I. D. Chernyakhovsky were mentioned much less frequently by soldiers and officers who performed feats on the land of East Prussia.

By the end of the period, cultural and artistic figures (17%, fig. 8, green) who created works on historical themes began to be mentioned more often. Thus, the name of Tengiz Abuladze, the director of the film "Repentance", which touches on the problems of Stalinist repression and the choice of the further path of development of the country, was often mentioned. Several articles were devoted to Vera Mukhina's sculptural works in the year of the 100th anniversary of her birth.

It is interesting to turn to the context of mentioning the name of V.I. Lenin (Fig. 9), which during the years of perestroika became a symbol of the renewal and reform of socialism, a return to Leninist ideals lost in previous periods. This thesis was persistently voiced in editorials and reports from various forums:

"Our current affairs and difficulties, perhaps more than ever before, turn us to the legacy of V. I. Lenin, a revolutionary, thinker, and man. Perestroika revealed to the Communists, the working masses, the true Lenin, a politician who, at any turn of events, was able to see the main thing, the interests and needs of the people."

Solemn meetings // Kaliningrad Pravda. 1991. April 23rd. (No.81). p. 1.

The calls to close Lenin's museums and cases of vandalism in relation to monuments to the leader were assessed extremely negatively in the party and Komsomol press:

"Things have gone so far that the Communist Party has to protect Lenin monuments from encroachments by city authorities in some areas of the country."

The party and society. Attack on monuments // Kaliningradskaya Pravda. 1990. September 16. (№215). C. 2.

Proposals to eliminate the tomb of the leader on Red Square were also rebuffed:

"Many people believe — and now, in the conditions of glasnost, they openly talk about it — that the public display of the remains does not correspond to Russian funeral customs, and contradicts the wishes of Lenin himself and his family."

The party and society. Attack on monuments // Kaliningradskaya Pravda. 1990. September 16. (№215). C. 2.

Fig. 9. The context of mentioning the subcategory "Lenin"

Another attitude in the press was towards Stalin's personality. His name most often appeared in connection with the cult of personality, which is evident from the context of the mention with the words "party", "cult", "power", "head", "one", "himself", "victim", "repression", "Stalinism", as well as the list of those destroyed by him personal enemies – "Trotsky", "Bukharin", "Zinoviev" (fig. 10).

Fig.10. The context of mentioning the subcategory "Stalin"

The diagram (fig. 11) analyzes the relationship of the joint occurrence of personalities with other categories. Lenin's name is associated with almost all categories. The second place in the number of connections belongs to I. V. Stalin. Stalin's name was 2 times more strongly associated with the theme of the Great Patriotic War (46) and the Revolution (19) than with political practices (26). The name of Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, after whom the regional center was named, was primarily associated by newspapers with the masses (15).

Fig. 11. Connections of the subcategory "Personalities" (threshold >30)

The political system of the USSR

The problems of the political structure of the Soviet state are reflected in the category "Political system of the USSR" (Fig. 12). In general, when describing historical events during the years of perestroika, the newspapers Kaliningradskaya Pravda and Kaliningradsky Komsomolets adhered to previously accepted assessments and stylistics. The description of the political system of the Soviet state emphasized the role of the party (39%) and the power of the Soviets (33%), paid attention to public organizations (17%). The topic of political practices, including repression and GULAG activities, was not in the focus of newspapers (11%).

Fig. 12. Frequency of occurrence of subcategories "Political system of the USSR"

At the same time, it is necessary to note the dynamics of mentioning subcategories at different stages of restructuring. Figure 13 shows that since 1987, the number of mentions of the subcategory "Political practices" has increased sharply, more than twice, mainly reflecting the topic of political repression. If in 1985 the share of "Political practices" in the category of "Political system of the USSR" was about 3%, by the early 1990s it had increased to 17% (Fig. 14, 15). At the same time, by the end of perestroika, the number of mentions of the party and public organizations (Komsomol, trade union, pioneer organization) is significantly reduced. This dynamic indicates that the regional press, following the central one, when discussing the problems of the political structure of the USSR, gradually shifted the center of gravity from formal dogmatic issues to consideration of the real practices of the functioning of socialism.

Fig. 13. Frequency of occurrence of subcategories "Political system of the USSR"

Another important conclusion is that if in 1985-1987, in accordance with the concept of "acceleration", the main role in the transformations was assigned to the CPSU, then starting in 1988 the emphasis began to be placed on the councils, which, as it was supposed, were to become the basis of a renewed political system from the bodies of formal representation of workers.

Attention should also be paid to the context of the use of certain subcategories. Thus, the "Party" is most often associated with the events of the Great Patriotic War, its role in achieving Victory was especially emphasized. Partisanship was noted as the most important factor in describing the biographies of Kaliningrad front-line soldiers, which allowed them to stand up and win:

"Before the attack, the company party organization accepted Berezkin into the ranks of the CPSU(b). He swore that he would justify the party's trust in the upcoming battle.";

Above Koenigsberg is the Victory Flag // Kaliningrad Komsomolets. 1985. April 10th. (No. 43). p. 2.

"Go ahead, heroes, to storm Konigsberg" - that's how the Motherland, the party, called the Komsomol members."

"Go ahead, heroes!" // Kaliningrad Komsomolets. 1986. April 9th. (No. 43). p. 2.

The description of the Soviets' activities concerned various periods of Soviet history. At the same time, their role in the past and present was often compared, the need to overcome bureaucracy in their work and revitalize their activities through new democratic procedures was noted.:

"Another thing is that the CPSU, under the guise of the fact that, de, the wrong people went to the Soviets, has already betrayed this slogan of its own. And the Soviets are the people. And there's no getting away from it."

You can't live like this, but how can you? // Kaliningrad Komsomolets. 1990. June 30. (No. 26). p. 6.

When calculating the indicator words belonging to the subcategory "Public organizations", it turned out that even the most massive of them (trade unions, Komsomol, pioneria) were represented by very rare mentions. During the restructuring, it is possible to trace changes in the assessments of their activities. Until 1987, inclusive, the image of a Komsomol member in the history of the country looked like a template: an example in labor and battle, proactive, ideologically savvy, a future communist to be looked up to:

"The twenty—second year is the year of joining the Komsomol. In 1925, Yefim became the secretary of the Komsomol organization of the ground workshops of the Kadievsky mine management. They held subbotniks and Sundays to restore the national economy destroyed during the war, and amateur concerts were organized. But all this was only part of the Komsomol work. The main thing for Efim and his friends was the ideological work aimed at fighting the Trotskyist-Zinovievite bloc."

Pages of one destiny // Kaliningrad Komsomolets. 1987. October 14th. (No. 124). p. 2.

Since 1988, criticism has been voiced against Komsomol organizations:

"But is it only in our home that we sometimes receive lessons of lack of spirituality? I still remember the Komsomol meeting in one of the schools. Such a correct, neat Komsomol activist, as an experienced speaker, ended his speech with the words: "Let me assure you that..."... But isn't this phrase designed only for a momentary effect? It's like a mountain off my shoulders: I stepped out and that's it. Until next time. But here's where the main thing is: isn't there too much accumulation of these "times". After all, the next assurances are already perceived not only by adults, but also by our children only as the traditional epilogue of a report, speech, or speech."

Borshchenkova T. Word and deed. First think ... // Kaliningrad truth. 1988. August 13. (186) p. 3

Fig. 16. Tag cloud of the subcategory "Political practices"

The most acute and discussed historical topics were reflected in the subcategory "Political practices". If in 1985-1987 elections were mainly called among them, then since 1988 newspapers began to write about the cult of personality, chiefdom, the activities of the NKVD-KGB, political trials, Stalinist repressions and their victims, the situation of political prisoners in camps, etc. (fig. 16). The peak of publications in the regional press on the topic of political persecution occurred in 1988. Further, this topic declined and was replaced by another topical issue (Fig. 17).

Fig. 17. Frequency of occurrence of the subcategory "Repression"

When describing the political trials of the "enemies of the people", it was always emphasized that lessons had been learned from the crimes committed:

"All these processes, as it was established, were falsified and conducted with gross violations of socialist legality. Persons who were brought to criminal responsibility on far-fetched charges of anti-state and anti-party activities have been fully rehabilitated in court."

The first months after the war // Kaliningrad Komsomolets. 1989. November 30th. (No. 274). p. 3.

And Stalin and his inner circle were responsible for violations of socialist legality:

"The victims were needed only by Stalin and the careerists around him like Yezhov and Beria. Repression created fear, and in an environment of fear, it was easier for Stalin to inculcate the cult of his sole authority."

Bazarov M. To the letter "I will not give up my biography!" From the standpoint of historical truth // Kaliningrad Pravda. 1988.3 April. (No. 79). p. 2.

Thus, in the press of the perestroika period, from about 1987-1988, the main vectors of characterizing the Soviet political system and relevant practices in the past were a critical rethinking of the role of the ruling Communist Party, the activities of soviets and public organizations. There was no talk of abolishing or eliminating these institutions, but of "revitalizing" them and reforming them on democratic principles.

Historical memory

What topics did the newspaper editors refer to as the problem of historical memory? Figure 18 shows the cloud of words of the subcategory "History and memory". To form a word cloud, all sentences with subcategory indicator words were uploaded to a separate Word file, lemmatized, stop words were excluded and a cloud was compiled in the online Word it art program. Most of the mentions are related to the theme of memory of the Great Patriotic War: "order", "warrior", "grave", "memorial", "assault".

Fig. 18. The cloud of words of the category "Historical memory"

A significant number of mentions of the subcategory "Historical memory" in 1985-1988 were replaced by a decrease in interest in 1989-1991 (Fig. 19). At the same time, stories began to appear characterizing the problems of historical memory, primarily as overcoming Stalinist repression and the cult of personality.

"The outstanding sculptor Ernst Neizvestny, who came to Sverdlovsk from the USA, is working on creating a model of a memorial to the victims of Stalinist repression, which will be installed in Vorkuta, Magadan and Sverdlovsk <...> It will be granite slabs with carved sad faces — symbols of Europe and Asia — two parts of the country that suffered equally from the repressive Stalinist system. The height of the memorial will be 15 meters."

By the debt of memory. The sad faces of Ernst the Unknown // Kaliningrad Pravda. 1991. January 23rd. (No. 16). p. 3.

Fig. 19. Frequency of occurrence of subcategories on the problems of "Historical memory"

The category of "Historical memory" should be considered in the context of the frequency of mention of other categories. Discussions about the phenomenon of memory, the processes of forgetting and remembering were primarily related to the theme of the Great Patriotic War and the Revolution (Fig. 20). The subcategory "Monuments, memorials, awards" showed the most close connection.

Fig. 20. Results of visualization of the frequency of joint occurrence of the category "Historical memory" (threshold >50)

Analysis of the frequency of joint occurrence of categories

The analysis of the network of common occurrence of categories gives interesting results (Fig. 21). The highest total frequencies of joint occurrence of categories arise for couples: "The Great Patriotic War" - "The Masses", "The Great Patriotic War" - "Monuments, memorials and awards", "The Great Patriotic War" - "History and Memory". Thus, the theme of the Great Patriotic War was central to the narrative of Soviet history. The least number of intersections is shown by the subcategories "The Era of stagnation" and "Building the foundations of the socialist system" in the 1920s and 1930s.

Fig. 21. The matrix of the common occurrence of categories

A visual visualization of the network of joint occurrence of categories is presented on the graphs made in the MAX QDA 2020 program. Figure 22 shows the density of the connection of subcategories with each other. To form a more visual picture of the relationships, a threshold of 50 frequencies was set.

Fig. 22. Results of visualization of frequencies of joint occurrence of categories (without threshold)

As can be seen in Fig. 23, the central link in the formation of the historical narrative was the theme of the Great Patriotic War. Other significant historical themes are the Revolution and post–war reconstruction. The subcategory "Lenin" is interesting as a link between historical plots, the political system and issues of historical memory.

Fig. 23. Results of visualization of frequencies of joint occurrence of categories (threshold >50)

Conclusions

The content analysis of two leading newspapers of the Kaliningrad region during the period of perestroika (1985-1991) allows us to see the dynamics of their attitude to certain periods and topics of Soviet history. In general, during these years, the newspapers Kaliningradskaya Pravda and Kaliningradsky Komsomolets for the most part maintained the previously accepted historical narrative regarding Soviet history. While the central press discussed the topics of Stalinism, repression and the political structure of the Soviet state, the editorial offices of the most popular Kaliningrad periodicals published materials about the revolution, Civil War, collectivization and industrialization, etc. in the spirit of official Soviet historiography, most often in essays about the lives of famous Kaliningrad residents.

The central figure in the historical narrative continued to be V. I. Lenin, whose name in the press was associated with hopes for the transformation of perestroika – "a return to the ideas of Ilyich." The most discussed figure in the central press, I. V. Stalin, although controversial, was not so significant for the residents of Kaliningrad. Local newspapers from time to time wrote about the cult of personality, the activities of the NKVD-KGB, political trials, repressions and their victims, etc. The peak of publications in the regional press on these subjects occurred in 1988, then this topic declined and was replaced by other topical issues. Throughout the entire period of perestroika, both in terms of the number and volume of publications, and in terms of traceable links with other historical periods of Soviet history, the Great Patriotic War remained the central theme, organically linked with the creation of the Kaliningrad Region as one of its important outcomes. A content analysis of regional press publications on Soviet history showed that the basis of the newly constructed historical memory of Kaliningrad residents about the Soviet past at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s was the theme of the heroic feat of the people during the war, whose enduring value could not be questioned even in the context of changing attitudes to other aspects of national history.

* This research was supported from the funds of the strategic academic leadership program "Priority 2030" of the I. Kant BFU, scientific project No. 123092000008-9.