Surveying as a method is not very popular among memory studies scholars. At the latest Memory Studies Association, very few papers were based on survey results, the same goes for the Memory Studies journal. The majority of work done in memory studies is focused on the production of memories or their representations in media, art, literature, politics, museums, monuments, and other milieus. Admittedly, there are studies of people's recollections of certain significant events (Hirst) or evaluation of the significance of world events (Schuman). In general, however, public or nonpublic (Frankfurt school) opinion surveys are, for the most part, ignored in memory studies.
This paper discusses the survey method in memory studies and different issues related to it. It overviews a number of existing approaches, including public and nonpublic opinion surveys, psychological research, and other studies using surveying methodology. I argue that the majority of such studies conceptualize memory as knowledge of the past or as attitudes towards past events. Thus, they fall into what Jeff Olick calls a sociological temptation to understand memory as a tangible thing instead of a process. I claim that there is a possibility to overcome this temptation in the survey method for memory studies.
Using an example of a survey on the memory of repressions in Russia, I discuss a different conceptualization of collective memory in surveys: a social and political process. The study "Dilemmas of the 20th Century" (https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftrudnaya-pamyat.ru%2F) conducted in Russia in Spring 2019 deals with populations' dispositions towards different principles of dealing with difficult past such as telling the truth or silencing it. These principles were devised on the basis of the analysis of different scenarios used in various countries (e.g., Spain, Argentina, Poland, etc.). The principles were formulated as dilemma questions easy to understand and close to respondents' day-to-day life. Responses to these dilemmas indicated ethical and political principles concerning difficult past.
In this research, memory is understood not as a tangible thing (e.g., knowledge of the past event) but rather as a process of dealing with memory; it is connected to other political processes (e.g., state politics and grassroots movements). It was hypothesized that there would be a number of groups of the population that prefer different constellations of these principles – thus, the survey presupposes that memory is not a singular entity. In other words, "Dilemmas of the 20th Century" strives to overcome the temptations of the sociology of collective memory outlined by Jeff Olick. More importantly, this research attempts to find new ways of conducting surveys about collective memory.
