Looking Away to Chechnya: On American Southerners’ Use of Lost Cause Mythology to Structure Narratives of Aggression and Resistance in the First Russo-Chechen War (1994-1996)
Open Access
Author:
Bucior, Christine Ann
Graduate Program:
Sociology
Degree:
Master of Arts
Document Type:
Master Thesis
Date of Defense:
August 06, 2015
Committee Members:
Alan M Sica, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor Jeffery Todd Ulmer, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor John Philip Christman, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Keywords:
collective memory narrative myth of the Lost Cause Chechnya
Abstract:
This paper focuses on the influence that stories about the past exert in shaping interpretations of current events. Building from theories of cultural trauma (e.g. Alexander 2004) and especially from James V. Wertsch’s theory of the “schematic narrative template” (2002; 2008a; 2008b), I propose the idea of “mold narratives”—deeply culturally engrained stories about specific events in the past that serve as subconscious frameworks for making sense of current events. Analysis focuses on American Southerners’ interpretations of the First Russo-Chechen War (1994-1996), and the ways in which those interpretations were shaped by a mold narrative based on the Lost Cause narrative of the American Civil War. Data are taken from 100 news articles about that First Russo-Chechen War that were written for Southern newspapers. Results show that patterns of Russian aggression and Chechen resistance/defense in these texts mirrors patterns of Northern (Union) aggression and Southern (Confederate) resistance/defense in the Lost Cause narrative.
