Sevastopol’s “Books of memory” as the project of perestroika

Abstract

This article examines seven “books memory” about the city of Sevastopol, which were published
from 1994 to 2010 in Ukraine, a project that was initiated in the Soviet Union in 1989 in connection with
the policy of Perestroika and preparation for the fiftieth anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union
in the Great Patriotic War. The text shows how the approaches to the creation of Sevastopol’s “books
of memory” also changed thanks to the evolution of society’s views of the past. Originally, the “books
of memory” contained information only about the Soviet soldiers who died in the Great Patriotic War,
but then later the books included information about civilians who were affected during the occupation,
German prisoners who died during the war, and people affected in the course of man-made disasters
or military conflicts in the twentieth century. Thus, the historical policy begun during Perestroika
contributed to the expansion of the frameworks of cultural memory in its various aspects.