Imposed Unity or Social Harmony? On the Socialist Construction Influence on of Forming of the East German Identity

The question of whether the Germans managed to preserve their national unity during the years of post-war "disengagement" remains open today. The painful adaptation of East Germany to the realities of a market economy led to the dismantling of the value system that existed in the GDR, while the historical memory of the GDR was also significantly revised, which was facilitated by the promotion of the image of the GDR as a "SED dictatorship" in the official historiography and socio-political discourse of Germany. Together, these factors led to the social exclusion of Germans in the two parts of Germany united in 1990. Today, using the example of the growing popularity in the "new" federal lands and the strengthening of "nostalgic" sentiments, we can see how much stronger the connecting threads than previously imagined were the "conquests of socialism": active socio-economic changes and cultural transformations aimed at strengthening the sovereignty of the GDR consolidated in the public consciousness the ideologies underlying the concept of socialist construction. In this regard, the problem of the influence of the socio-economic model on the formation of national identity requires serious scientific development, since the results of such a study can be applied not only to the history of Germany itself, but also will reveal the mechanisms of selfdetermination of society in conditions of active influence on it by a complex of external and internal factors.