Grassroots memorials have become well known for scholars since the 1980s. The researchers mostly place these practices in between public grievances and grassroots political protest. I propose a not less productive way to analyse these kinds of memorials, considering them as a channel for self-representation in the public sphere that is used by margin social and political groups. In societies where access to the public sphere is limited, a non-conventional mechanism that lets margin groups represent themselves via non-political practices, such as a funeral rite, may appear. The public nature of the funeral rite allows political groups to use it as an occasion to mobilise supporters. The commemorative background of these gatherings prevents them from being considered as a political manifestation, nor do they have any organiser who could be legally penalised. Thus, death-related rituals, including grassroots memorialisation, appear to be an effective channel for margin political groups to represent themselves and even to state and promote their political ideas. In this paper, I will analyse this phenomenon using current Russian observational data and show how these practices become an important channel for political opposition in Russia to communicate with the electorate, opponents and authority.

中文翻译：

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当仪式成为抗议活动时：越过俄罗斯哀悼的桥梁

自1980年代以来，草根纪念馆已为学者所熟知。研究人员大多将这些做法置于公众的不满和基层政治抗议之间。我提出了一种同样有效的方式来分析这些纪念馆，并将其作为边缘社会和政治团体所使用的公共领域自我代表的渠道。在进入公共领域的社会受到限制的社会中，可能会出现一种非传统的机制，该机制可以让边缘群体通过非政治活动来代表自己，例如葬礼。葬礼的公共性质允许政治团体以此为契机动员支持者。这些聚会的纪念背景使他们无法被视为政治表现，他们也没有任何可能受到法律制裁的组织者。因此，与死亡相关的仪式，包括基层纪念活动，似乎是边缘政治团体代表自己，甚至陈述和宣传其政治思想的有效渠道。在本文中，我将使用俄罗斯当前的观测数据来分析这种现象，并说明这些做法如何成为俄罗斯政治反对派与选民，反对派和权威进行沟通的重要渠道。