From Hope to Escape: Post-Soviet Russian Memory and Identity

Drawing on letters written by citizens of the USSR to US Congressman James Wright following his 1987 congressional visit and Soviet television appearance as well as follow-up interviews conducted by this author with many of the same individuals in 2002-2004, this paper will recount the memories of several Muscovites and argue that although the western collective memory of the Cold War is one of victory, the individual accounts of Russians reveals a created memory of the Soviet past which, when confronted with the dire socioeconomic conditions that exist in post-1991 Russia, leads to a crisis of identity.