| Abstract [eng] |
This interdisciplinary work examines expressions of memory culture in USA heritage preservation. Manifestations of racial conflict in heritage and the representativeness of authorized heritage discourse are at the heart of the problem. The aim is to reveal the creation of memory culture meanings in the public space through the actualization of the past. This work opens up new possibilities to incorporate past representation dimensions, revealing the marginalized social and racial strata perceptions. Which are involved in the struggle for liberation from the legacy of slavery, with structural racial inequality, systematic racism. Methodological synthesis is being applied: case study, field research, participant observation, oral history interview, analytical descriptive, and content analysis, and literary criticism. The study distinguishes the basic elements of memory culture and political culture, indicating the relationship between heritage, history, memory, as well as identities. Analyzing how the phenomenon of racial slavery is presented in the authorized heritage discourse and what continuities of the slavery past are ensured by the heritage regulation. The case study reveals the typicality of Oakland and Magnolia plantations in the context of plantation museums in the southern states, cultural landscape features, and heritage regulation, despite institutional involvement. The basic elements of memory culture have been identified: the process of othering, myth, cultural landscape, and phenomena of cultural trauma. Authorized heritage discourse is based on racial inequality, promotes the memory of cultural trauma in the marginalized part of society, and the rhetoric of white supremacy, which is founded in the ideology of slavery. The use of the term Creole to legitimize historic sites as authentic displaces the memory of African Americans from the official narrative at Cane River Creole National Historic Park. The continuity of the ideology of slavery in a modern, politically correct, form is observed to be taking place through legitimizing process. Literature criticism and oral history interviews analysis reveal the structures of public consciousness and give way for representational alternatives. Kate Chopin’s short story from the final decades of the 19th century exposes the lack of moral accountability to a human as a commonplace in the structure of public consciousness. In whiteness, K. Chopin encodes the meanings of dignity, honor, nobility, in blackness - inferiority, disgrace, shame. The negative effects of racism on the oppressors themselves are also highlighted. The impact of slavery is presented as cultural trauma on African-Americans and is conveyed in the novel, “Beloved” by Toni Morison. The representation of the racial slavery past in the novel signifies a coexistence with a difficult past that cannot be forgotten, one that is ever-present in Afro-American identity formation. The memorialized heritage of the plantation sites does not give oral history interview respondents a sense of belonging. In the face of racial oppression, respondents exhibit resilience in the forms of high moral values and therefore feel proud of the qualities imposed by the construct of race. The rhetoric of inclusiveness of history is gradually gaining ground in the discourse of heritage preservation. In a society divided based on the racial construct, comprehensiveness of historical truths, reconciliation, and dialogically are being pursued. |
