The elusive object: the study of regional historical memory in modern Russian studies

In the article the author pays attention to the need of studying the regional aspects of historical memory. Based on the constructivist interpretation of historical memory, the author analyses which factors led to the current situation: a high degree of centralization of the system of humanitarian and social education; centralization in the media; the absence or weak influence of local institutions of historical memory broadcasting; low social demand for regional content about the past. The author proposes to change the optics of the study of regional history, abandoning the installations of conditional “local history”, from the position of which the region appears as one of the “edges” of the state. To do this, it is necessary to develop regional tourism and branding of individual territories, increase the recognition of visual images associated with the specifics of the region, and use the resources of family memory.