Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:39:37.744Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Russia’s Night Wolves, Migrating Memory and Europe’s Eastern Frontier

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2021

Virág Molnár ,
Karolina Koziura  and
Franziska König-Paratore
Virág Molnár
Affiliation:
The New School for Social Research [[email protected]]
Karolina Koziura
Affiliation:
The New School for Social Research [[email protected]]
Franziska König-Paratore
Affiliation:
The New School for Social Research [[email protected]].
Get access

Abstract

The article examines the controversy triggered by the “Victory Tour” of Russia’s high-profile biker organization, the Night Wolves, to mark the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany. The tour provoked important questions about the relationship between European borders and the politics of World War II commemoration. The article argues that the international public discourse around the Night Wolves illuminates how state borders are being transformed both as hard, territorialized borders and as “soft,” symbolic boundaries. The analysis compares how print and online media in Russia, Poland, and Germany framed the Night Wolves’ tour across Europe. It emphasizes the construction of borders as a narrative project and maps the symbolic boundary-drawing strategies mobilized by various actors. It shows how cross-border commemorative tours can serve as a tool of transnational memory politics that shapes the very meaning and salience of state borders and regional divisions.

Résumé

Résumé

L’article examine la controverse déclenchée par le « Victory Tour » de la célèbre organisation de motards de Russie, les Night Wolves, pour marquer le soixante-dixième anniversaire de la défaite de l’Allemagne nazie contre l’Union soviétique. La tournée a suscité d’importantes questions sur la relation entre les frontières européennes et la politique de commémoration de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. L’article soutient que le discours public international autour des Night Wolves illustre la façon dont les frontières des États sont transformées à la fois en frontières dures et territorialisées et en frontières symboliques « douces ». L’analyse compare la manière dont les médias imprimés et en ligne en Russie, en Pologne et en Allemagne ont encadré la tournée des Night Wolves à travers l’Europe. Il met l’accent sur la construction des frontières comme projet narratif et cartographie les stratégies de tracé symbolique des frontières mobilisées par différents acteurs. Il montre comment les visites commémoratives transfrontalières peuvent servir d’outil de politique de la mémoire transnationale qui façonne la signification et la saillance mêmes des frontières étatiques et des divisions régionales.

Zusammenfassung

Zusammenfassung

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Kontroverse, die die „Siegestour“ des russischen Biker-Clubs „Die Nachtwölfe“ zum siebzigsten Jahrestag des sowjetischen Siegs über Nazideutschland ausgelöst hat. Die Tour stellt das Verhältnis zwischen europäischen Grenzen und der Gedenkkultur zum Zweiten Weltkrieg in ein neues Licht. Die internationale öffentliche Debatte um die Nachtwölfe zeigt auf, wie Staatsgrenzen sowohl in harte, territorialisierte Grenzen als auch in „weiche“, symbolische Grenzen umgewandelt werden können. Die Untersuchung vergleicht die Darstellung der europäischen Nachtwölfe-Tour durch russische, polnische und deutsche Print- wie Online-Medien. Sie unterstreicht das narrative Projekt der Grenzkonstruktion und dokumentiert die Symbolik der Grenzziehungsstrategien verschiedener Akteure. Es wird aufgegezeigt, wie grenzüberschreitende Gedenkbesuche im Rahmen einer transnationalen Erinnerungspolitik instrumentalisiert werden können, die entscheidend die Bedeutung und die Wichtigkeit staatlicher Grenzen und regionaler Teilungen prägen.

Keywords

BordersMemory PoliticsTransnational memoryNationalismEastern EuropeFrontièresPolitique de la mémoireMémoire transationaleNationalismeEurope de l’EstGrenzenErinnerungspolitikTransnationale ErinnerungNationalismusOsteuropa
Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , April 2021 , pp. 71 - 103
Copyright
© European Journal of Sociology 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aksartova, Sada, 2005. Civil Society from Abroad: U.S. Donors in the Former Soviet Union, PhD diss., Princeton University, Princeton.Google Scholar
Assmann, Aleida, 2014. “Transnational Memories”, European Review, 22 (4): 546–556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bassin, Mark, 1991. “Russia Between Europe and Asia: the Ideological Construction of Geographical Space,” Slavic Review, 50 (1): 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berliner Morgenpost, 2015. “Siegestour, ‘Nachtwölfe’ aufgehalten: Rocker Übernachten in Torgau,” May 7.Google Scholar
Bernhard, Bernhard and Kubik, Jan, eds, 2014. Twenty Years after Communism. The Politics of Memory and Commemoration (Cambridge, Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bidder, Benjamin, 2015. “Putins Rudel,” Spiegel Online, April 14.Google Scholar
Biernat, Arkadiusz and Król, Aleksander, 2015. “Nocne Wilki Jadą Przez Śląsk do Auschwitz [plan jazdy Nocnych Wilków],” Dziennik Zachodni, April 17.Google Scholar
BILD.DE , 2015a. “Kommen Putins Biker Jetzt Illegal in die EU? ‘Nachtwölfe:’ Wir Haben es über die Grenze Geschafft!,” May 2.Google Scholar
BILD.DE, 2015b. “Kommen Putins Biker Jetzt Illegal in die EU? ‘Nachtwölfe’: Wir haben es über die Grenze geschafft!,” May 2.Google Scholar
BILD.DE, 2015c. “Warum Dürfen die Nachtwölfe Eigentlich Durch Deutschland Touren?,” May 4.Google Scholar
Bottici, Chiara and Challand, Benoît, 2013. Imagining Europe: Myth, Memory, and Identity (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Kate, 2005. A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland (Cambridge, Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Carothers, Thomas, 2006. “The Backlash Against Democracy Promotion,” Foreign Affairs, 85 (2): 55–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charmaz, Kathy, [2006] 2014. Constructing Grounded Theory (London, SAGE Publications).Google Scholar
Chinkova, Elena, 2015. “Probeg ‘Nochnykh volkov’ Oblozhili Krasnymi Flazhkami na Granitse s Pol’shei”, Komsomol’skaia Pravda, April 16.Google Scholar
Ciastoch, Marta, 2015. Daliśmy się Sprowokować Nocnym Wilkom”, Newsweek, April 24.Google Scholar
Donath, Klaus, 2015a. Nationalistische Rockergruppe: ‘Wo Wir Sind, ist Russland,’, taz, April 17.Google Scholar
Donath, Klaus, 2015b. “Russischer Biker über NS-Gedenken: ‘Wir Verteidigen Uns Gegen Satan,’” taz.de, April 24.Google Scholar
Dragański, Damian, 2015. “Nocne Wilki Niewpuszczone do Polski. Nie Mieli Potrzebnych Wiz,” Polska Times, April 27.Google Scholar
Eder, Klaus, 2006. “Europe’s Borders: the Narrative Construction of the Boundaries of Europe,” European Journal of Social Theory, 9 (2): 255–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellman, Michael and Maskudov, S., 1994. “Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: a Note,” Europe-Asia Studies, 46 (4): 671–680.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Erll, Astrid, 2011. “Travelling Memory,” Parallax, 17 (4): 4–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FAKT24.PL , 2015. “Rosja atakuje Polskę. Będzie zemsta Moskwy na Warszawie? Za Wilki!,” April 29.Google Scholar
Gabowitsch, Mischa, 2017. “Insel Treptow. Praktische Aneignung und Mediale Kartographie Sowjetischer Gedenkorte in Berlin und Wittenberg,” in Gabowitsch, Mischa, Cordula, Gdaniec and Ekaterina, Makhotina, eds, Kriegsgedenken als Event: Der 9. Mai 2015 im Postsozialistischen Europa (Paderborn, F. Schöningh: 203–277).Google Scholar
Galai, Yoav, 2019. “The Transnational Mythscape of the Second World War,” Memory Studies [https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698019863151].CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gebauer, Matthias, 2015. “Nachtwölfe-Motorradkorso Bundesregierung droht Putins Rockerbande,” Spiegel Online, April 25.Google Scholar
Glaser, Barney G. and Strauss, Anselm L., 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research (Chicago, Aldine).Google Scholar
Gorham, Michael, 2014. After Newspeak: Language, Culture and Politics in Russia from Gorbachev to Putin (Ithaca, Cornell University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grishin, Aleksandr, 2015. “Evropa Zabyla, Kto Bral Berlin,” Komsomol’skaia Pravda, April 29.Google Scholar
Hans, Julian, 2015. “Wie Berlin die ‘Nachtwölfe’ Empfangen Sollte,” Süddeutsche, April 30.Google Scholar
Harris, Kira, 2020. “Russia’s Fifth Column: The Influence of the Night Wolves Motorcycle Club,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 43 (4): 259–273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hemment, Julie, 2012. “Nashi, Youth Voluntarism, and Potemkin NGOs: Making Sense of Civil Society in Post-Soviet Russia,” Slavic Review, 71 (2): 234–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jerofejew Von, Viktor, 2015. “Tag des Sieges in Russland. Der Krieg beginnt gerade erst,” FAZ. NET, May 8.Google Scholar
Kalinowska, Agnieszka and Pieńkowski, Marcin, 2015. “Polska Bez Pomystu na Nocne Wilki,” Rzeczpospolita, April 16.Google Scholar
Karulov, Igor, 2015. “Motorprobeg i Biurokratizm,” Izvestia, May 7.Google Scholar
Komsomol’skaia Pravda , 2015. “Chem Stal dlia Vas E’tot Iubilei’ Pobedy?,” May 12.Google Scholar
Kucia, Marek, 2016. “The Europeanization of Holocaust Memory and Eastern Europe,” East European Politics and Societies and Culture, 30 (1), 97–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamont, Michèle and Molnár, Virág, 2002. “The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences,” Annual Review of Sociology, 28: 167–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lanoszka, Alexander, 2016. “Russian Hybrid Warfare and Extended Deterrence in Eastern Europe,” International Affairs, 92 (1): 175–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laruelle, Marlene, 2019. “Russia’s Militia Groups and their Use at Home and Abroad,” Russie.Nei.Visions, 113, April.Google Scholar
Levy, Daniel and Sznaider, Natan, 2002. “Memory Unbound: The Holocaust and the Formation of Cosmopolitan Memory,” European Journal of Social Theory, 5 (1): 87–106.Google Scholar
Mälksoo, Maria, 2009. “The Memory Politics of Becoming European: The East European Subalterns and the Collective Memory of Europe,” European Journal of International Relations, 15 (4): 653–680.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mishkova, Diana and Trencsényi, Balázs, eds, 2017. European Regions and Boundaries: A Conceptual History, vol. 3 (New York, Berghahn Books).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molnár, Virág, 2016. “Civil Society, Radicalism and the Rediscovery of Mythic Nationalism,” Nations and Nationalism, 22 (1): 165–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neumann, Iver B., 1999. Uses of the Other: The “East” in European Identity Formation (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press).Google Scholar
Newman, Nic, Levy, David A. L. and Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis, 2015. Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2015: Tracking the Future of News (Oxford, University of Oxford Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nora, Pierre, 1996–1998. Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past . Volume I-III (New York, Columbia University Press).Google Scholar
Novaya Gazeta , 2015a. “Nochnye Volki ‘Prorvalic’cherez Granitsu ES”, April 30.Google Scholar
Novaya Gazeta , 2015b. “‘Nochnyye volki’ Vozlozhili Tsvety k Pamiatniku Sovetskomu Voinu v Berline,” May 9.Google Scholar
Nutt von, Harry, 2015. “Mit dem IQ einer Nockenwelle,” Frankfurter Rundschau, May 5.Google Scholar
Oushakine Serguei, A., 2009. The Patriotism of Despair: Nation, War, and Loss in Russia (Ithaca, Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Olick, Jeffrey, 1999. “Genre Memories and Memory Genres: A Dialogical Analysis of May 8, 1945 Commemorations in the Federal Republic of Germany,” American Sociological Review, 64 (3): 381–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palmberger, Monika and Tošic, Jelena eds, 2016. Memories on the Move. Experiencing Mobility, Rethinking the Past (London, Palgrave Macmillan).Google Scholar
Parfitt, Tom, 2015. “Thousands Take Part in ‘Anti-Maidan’ Protest in Moscow Against Uprising in Ukraine,” The Telegraph, February 21.Google Scholar
Pilkington, Hilary, 1994. Russia’s Youth and Its Culture. A Nation’s Constructors and Constructed (London, Routledge).Google Scholar
Pisano, Jessica and Simonyi, André, 2016. “Post-Soviet or Eurasian Lands. Rethinking Analytic Categories in the Ukraine-EU and Russia-China Borderlands,” in Tone, Bringa and Hege, Toje, eds, Eurasian Borderlands. Spatializing Borders in the Aftermath of State Collapse (New York, Springer: 27–59).Google Scholar
Pomerantsev, Peter, 2013. “Forms of Delirium,” London Review of Books, 35 (19): 5–7.Google Scholar
Potocki, Michał and Parafianowicz, Zbigniew, 2015. “Nocne Wilki: Hybrydowa Oferta dla Polski,” Gazeta Prawna, April 21.Google Scholar
Rossoliński-Liebe, Grzegorz, 2014. Stepan Bandera. The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist. Fascism, Genocide, and Cult (Stuttgart, Ibidem Verlag).Google Scholar
Rothberg, Michael, 2009. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization (Stanford, Stanford University Press).Google Scholar
Rzeczpospolita , 2015. “Nie Powinniśmy Wpuszczać Nocnych Wilków”, April 13.Google Scholar
Schenk, Frithjof Benjamin, 2017. “Eastern Europe,” in Mishkova, Diana and Balázs, Trencsényi, eds, European Regions and Boundaries: A Conceptual History, vol. 3. (New York, Berghahn Books: 188–209).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schudson, Michael, [2003] 2011. The Sociology of News (New York, W. W. Norton & Company).Google Scholar
Schwelling, Birgit, 2012. “Transnational Civil Society’s Contribution to Reconciliation,” Reconciliation, Civil Society, and the Politics of Memory: Transnational Initatives in the 20th and 21st Century. Erinnerungskulturen-Memory Cultures (Bielfeld, transcript Verlag : 7–21).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sergunin, Alexander and Karabeshkin, Leonid, 2015. “Understanding Russia’s Soft Power Strategy,” Politics, 35 (3-4): 347–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siddi, Marco, 2017. “The Ukraine Crisis and European Memory Politics of the Second World War,” European Politics and Society, 18 (4): 465–479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sierp, Aline, 2014. History, Memory, and Trans-European Identity: Unifying Divisions (London/New York, Routledge).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tabor, Damon, 2015. “Putin’s Angels: Inside Russia’s Most Infamous Motorcycle Club,” Rolling Stone, October 8.Google Scholar
Todorova, Maria, 1997. Imagining the Balkans (New York, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Troebst, Stefan, 2005. “Jalta versus Stalingrad, GULag versus Holocaust. Konfligierende Erinnerungskulturen im Größeren Europa,” Berliner Journal für Soziologie, 3: 381–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tumarkin, Nina, 1994. The Living and the Dead: the Rise and Fall of the Cult of World War II in Russia (New York, Basic Books).Google Scholar
Wagner-Pacifici, Robin, 1986. The Moro Morality Play. Terrorism as Social Drama (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Walters, William, 2015. “Migration, Vehicles, and Politics: Three Theses on Viapolitcs,” European Journal of Social Theory, 18 (4): 469–488.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wawrzonek, Michał, 2014. “Ukraine in the ‘Gray Zone’: Between the ‘Russkii Mir’ and Europe,” East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, 28 (4): 758–780.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Geoffrey M. and Buchheim, Eveline, 2015. “Introduction: Traveling War: Memory Practices in Motion,” History and Memory, 27 (2): 5–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimmer, Andreas and Schiller, Nina Glick, 2002. “Methodological Nationalism and Beyond: Nation–state Building, Migration and the Social Sciences,” Global Networks, 2 (4): 301–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wojakowski, Dariusz, 2014. “Past, Conflicts and Seeking of Reconciliation on the Polish Ukrainian Borderland,” in Kurczewski, Jacek, ed., Reconciliation in Bloodlands: Assessing Actions and Outcomes in Contemporary Central-Eastern Europe (Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang: 271–300).Google Scholar
Wolff, Larry, 1994. Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford, Stanford University Press).Google Scholar
Wood, Elizabeth A., 2011. “Performing Memory: Vladimir Putin and the Celebration of WWII in Russia,” The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, 38 (2): 172–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wüstenberg, Jenny, 2017. Civil Society and Memory in Postwar Germany (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wüstenberg, Jenny, 2019. “Locating Transnational Memory”, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 32: 371–382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zabyelina, Yuliya, 2017. “Russia’s Night Wolves Motorcycle Club: From 1%ers to Political Activists,” Trends in Organized Crime, 22: 1–15.Google Scholar
Zhurzhenko, Tatiana, 2007. “The Geopolitics of Memory,” Eurozine, 10: 2007.Google Scholar
Zubrzycki, Geneviève and Woźny, Anna, 2020. “The Comparative Politics of Collective Memory, Annual Review of Sociology, 46: 175–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar