Historical re-enactment: narrativity, affect and the sublime

• Published in: Rethinking History
• Main Author: Mikula, M
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis 2015
• Subjects: karelia*; karelian
• Online Access: http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/26652/; http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/26652/1/PubSub3986_Mikula.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1080/13642529.2014.982347

The Karelian Evacuation Trail is an annual reenactment event which commemorates the uprooting of the Finno-Karelian population from their homeland in present-day Russia, and their resettlement in residual Finland in the aftermath of World War II. Initiated in 2006 by the Society of Children Displaced by the War, the Trail has since been held annually, each time in a different municipality in Southern Finland. In the Evacuation Trail, plot lines derived from family traditions and national literature act as a Gestalt, within which the empirical phenomena gained via sensorial stimuli are perceived. The embodied experience generates a sublime effect and a grounding sense of community among the participants. Based on my case study, I argue that inter-subjective co-creation through embodied performance provides a more inclusive alternative to the institution of 'branded authorship' prevalent in modernist historiography. It is particularly well suited for representing postmodern collectivities, traumatised by major displacements and destabilised by social change and the far-reaching 'dispersal' and 'disembodiment' of contemporary media.