Authors

Discussion

The paper is concerned with the cult of "secular sacred" of heritage, which originated in the USSR during World War II and subsequently gained significant political weight during the conservative turn under Khrushchev and Brezhnev. But instead of ideological forms of retrospectivism, my focus is on a range of grassroots, volunteer initiatives that were established through the shared values of heritage and collective efforts to preserve it. I use the Valaam Historical, Cultural and Natural Reserve as a case study to discuss it as a "common place" of the late Soviet intelligentsia who came there to both escape the gaze of the state and to live out their idealistic visions of collectivism and a better future. I rely on the archival materials, published accounts, and the oral histories of those who were directly involved in the restoration of the island in the 1980s, situating the discussion in the recent scholarship on the social nature of grassroots historical, cultural, and natural heritage preservation and activism.