Social Memory and Formation of Urban Identity of the Regional Capital City (on the Example of Saransk)

The subject of the study is the formation of urban identity based on group reflection on the past and present. The article summarizes the results of in-depth interviews with the experts and online observation of the thematic communities in the social network VKontakte, dedicated to the visual history of Saransk — the capital of the Republic of Mordovia and focusing on the late Soviet period as the era of its transformation into a major city, revealing the specific features of the social identity of the population of the republican capital, as well as the social functions of virtual urban communities as “assemblage points” of urban identity. Considering Saransk nostalgic communities in “new media” as a specific form of digitalization in modern “public history” and visualization of social memory, the author analyzes symbolic communication and manifestation of collective emotions of their members in modes of collective trauma and nostalgia. Author specifies the basic functions of nostalgic communities: the construction of cultural trauma of the social changes, promoting comprehension of responsibility for development of a city and stimulation of civil activity, formation of a complete image of a city in space and in time, identification of users with the generalized image of the city and urban community.