The Baikal-Amur Mainline

Author(s)

Olga Povoroznyuk

Abstract

The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), a railroad in East-Siberia and the Russian Far East, became the last large Soviet industrial project. Its construction in the 1970s and 1980s attracted migrants from across the USSR, who formed the bamovtsy, or group of BAM builders. They share a history of working and living along the BAM and constitute the majority population in the region. The article argues that emotionally charged social memory of the BAM construction plays the central role in reproducing and reinforcing the bamovtsy identity in the post-Soviet period. Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus groups, the article examines the dynamics of both individual and collective remembering of the socialist BAM. It forms a vibrant discursive and emotional field, in which memories and identities are reconstructed, relived, and contested. Commemorative ceremonies such as the fortieth anniversary of the BAM serve as forums of public remembering and arenas for the politics of emotions.

Organisation(s)

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Journal

Sibirica

Volume

18

Pages

22-52

No. of pages

31

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3167/sib.2019.180103

Publication date

2019

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

504017 Cultural anthropology, 504009 Ethnology

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Cultural Studies, Anthropology, History, Sociology and Political Science

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/the-baikalamur-mainline(d2a76489-886b-40d4-b1ef-95c11093979d).html