On Embedding the Image of the Soviet Leader in the Regional Elite Structure of the Republic of Altai (Russian Federation)

Based on the information collected, the paper studies the ways of constructing a Soviet leader’s image and the reasons for its integration into the structure of the regional ethnopolitical elite. It is highlighted that M.V. Karamaev, chairman of the Gorno-Altai regional executive committee in 1971–1988, became such a Soviet leader. It was determined that an important argument for his activity was presented in order to be included in the top three creators of the republic – G.I. Choros-Gurkin, M.V. Karamaev, and V.I. Chaptynov. In November 1989, at the session of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, M.V. Karamaev raised the issue of the need for the Gorno-Altai Autonomous Region to secede from the Altai Territory, although this was inevitable during the years of “perestroika.” A number of technological methods used in commemorative practices to perpetuate his memory are outlined: renaming streets and schools, organizing scientific conferences, and opening a memorial plaque, a museum, and exhibitions of other objects of material and cultural heritage that have a symbolic meaning. It was revealed that the political mythology created in the region is based on the consideration that a positive image of the Soviet leader M.V. Karamaev and fixed in the public mind will strengthen the position of his heirs as the ethno-political elite. An alternative side of the national memory policy has emerged – the fact that the history of the Altai Republic formation is associated with the name of G.I. Choros-Gurkin and his associates, repressed by the Soviet authorities in 1937. The successor of their idea to create a republic in Gorny Altai was N.M. Kiselev, First Secretary of the Gorno-Altai Regional Committee of the CPSU in 1955–1960, who was declared a separatist in 1959 for advocating the separation of the Gorno-Altai Autonomous Region from the Altai Territory. It is concluded that the ethnopolitical elite’s possession of power gives it control over the developing social movement “Kurultai of the Altai people,” which has become a platform for discussing the sociopolitical problems of the region.