Taming Anxieties, Coping with Mnemonic Conflicts: Cultural Diplomacy of Crimean Tatar and Lithuanian American Diasporas through Historical Films

Year 2022, Volume: 19 Issue: 73, 17 - 32, 09.04.2022

Didem Buhari Gülmez Dovilė Budrytė

https://doi.org/10.33458/uidergisi.1086514

Abstract

This study focuses on the cultural diplomacy of Crimean Tatar and Lithuanian American diasporas, who both suffered from deportation at the hands of the Soviets and are conducting anti-Russian diplomacy today. Historical films are useful in terms of showing how the diasporic communities seek to reconstruct a collective memory on a traumatic event and tame their anxieties of death, meaninglessness, and condemnation that constitute “unknown unknowns” by turning them into the fear of a “known unknown” through securitization. Therefore, this study aims to grasp the multiplicity of anxieties reflected upon the Crimean Tatar and Lithuanian diasporas’ recent historical films that demonstrate how diasporas’ varying anxieties translate into diverse strategies of political representation and mobilisation against Russia. It thus reconciles the scholarship on diaspora’s memory politics with anxiety/fear nexus in securitization theory.

Keywords

Trauma, deportation, securitization, anxiety of death, memory politics

Kaygıları Bastırmak, Bellek Çatışmalarıyla Baş Etmek: Tarihsel filmler yoluyla Kırım Tatarı ve ABD’deki Litvanya Diasporalarının Kültürel Diplomasisi

Abstract

Bu çalışma, Sovyetlerin sürgününe uğramış ve bugün Rusya karşıtı diplomasi yürüten Kırım Tatarı diasporasının ve ABD’deki Litvanya diasporasının kültürel diplomasisine odaklanmaktadır. Tarihsel filmler, diasporaların travmatik bir olayla ilgili kolektif belleği nasıl yeniden inşa etmeye çalıştıklarını ve güvenlikleştirme yoluyla “bilinmez bilinmeyenlere” karşı duyulan ölüm, anlamsızlık ve itham edilme kaygılarını nasıl “bilinen bilinmeyene” yönelik korkuya dönüştürerek bastırmaya çalıştıklarını göstermesi açısından yararlıdır. Dolayısıyla, bu çalışma Kırım Tatarı ve ABD’deki Litvanya diasporalarının son dönemdeki tarihsel filmlerine yansıyan çoklu kaygıları ve diasporaların bu farklı kaygılarının nasıl çeşitli Rusya’ya karşı siyasi temsil ve seferberlik stratejilerine aktarıldığını anlamayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu sayede, diasporalarda bellek siyaseti literatürüyle güvenlikleştirme kuramındaki kaygı/korku bağlantısı literatürünü buluşturmaktadır.

Keywords

Travma, sürgün, güvenlikleştirme, ölüm kaygısı, bellek siyaseti

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