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SOCIAL IDENTITY AS A SPACE-MARKER OF REFORMATORY SOCIAL ACTIVITY (BY THE EXAMPLE OF SOLOVKY ISLANDS’ COMMUNITY)

Lidia Rakhmanova

Abstract

What do we really know about the close ties between identity and social action? This article focuses on this problem, encompassing the case of the community, located on the Solovetsky archipelago in the White Sea. This settlement has a brief history. It begun to take shape after the second World War after the Solovetsky Camp of Special Designation and the prison were disbanded. If we look deeper at the history beyond the border of the twentieth century, we’ll see five centuries of Solovetsky monastery, which existed since 1429, when the first two monks landed the island. So, in fact, Solovky used to be the land of a special regime. The rules of life and social communication where at first regulated by the Charter of the monastery, and then – by the camp formularies. That’s why in 1940s civilian population settled on the archipelago for the first time. But still – the settlers where mainly marine service man with their families and maintenance staff. Taking into account all these three periods, we ought to concede that socio-economic arrangement on Solovky islands was based mainly on thought-out and time-proved rules. Only in late 1960s social structure of the Solovetsky settlement started to become more and more uncoordinated and fragmented. This context is important for us during consideration of the phenomena of self-sufficient social action circumscribed by self-identity. This article shows, in which way identification with the history and cultural context of the place influences the intensity of individual initiative that entails personified non-fake social activity in the island community.

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