Decolonizing the Postsocialist Childhood Memories

Abstract

My childhood nostalgia is not in any way connected to socialism. Rather, it refers to affects that are maximally distilled from any ideological elements. My Proustian memory avalanches take me back to the Caucasus, to its fascinating nature, and to its local people, traditions, and culture. I remember our family trips to the mountains, the taste of fruit impossible to find today, the smell of the blooming cherry plums in the old park where my father secretly showed me the gone-wild old trees from the indigenous Circassian forest gardens, the shady spacious flat with thousands of books, and me sitting under the glass coffee table and leafing through an impressionist art catalogue.