To Kill the Son

The article deals with the mechanics of oblivion in the structure of historical memory in the digital environment (media memory). Th e authors consider media memory as a system of selection of emotionally colored ideas about the Past, in which oblivion plays the role of a fi lter established by censorship and mythologizing practices. Using the example of two specifi c historical events, the murder of the heirs of the throne by the royal fathers, they show how the mechanism of oblivion works by comparing historiographical, mythological and media narratives. Th e empirical basis of the media narrative research is Internet memes dedicated to Ivan the Terrible and Peter I. Th e authors come to the conclusion that the censorship and ideological practice of state mythology refused to distort the historiographical conventions about the analyzed events in favor of their displacement. Empirical data demonstrate the displacement of the moral aspect in the assessment of events due to the humorous strategy of their interpretation

Archaeology · Art · Censorship · Historiography · Ideology · Literature · Media studies · Mythology · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Throne · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy · Security, Politics, and Digital Transformation · Sociopolitical Dynamics in Russia