Revised History and New Identity in East Europe Cover Image

Ревидирана историја и нов идентитет во Источна Европа
Revised History and New Identity in East Europe

Author(s): Todor Kuljić
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Nationalism Studies, Historical revisionism
Published by: Институтот за општествени и хуманистички науки – Скопје
Keywords: Revised history; nationalism; East Europe;

Summary/Abstract: The author presents the main and general characteristics of historiographic revisionism in Europe in the 1990s, drawing attention to the various features of revisionism in former socialist countries (Russia, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria) and their attitude to Socialism. The necessary scientific re-examination of the past is separated from its ideological reinterpretation inspired by revived nationalism. Contemporary historiographic revisionism exhibits a number of components: a critical attitude to historiography on the part of the winner (the communists); a clearer understanding of the essence of past events owing to greater distance from them and to the availability of new sources; a pragmatic reinterpretation of the past inspired by narrow or broad party or national motives. Revisionists in former socialist countries find their principal source in revived nationalism which seeks to play down one’s own fascist past by uncritically attacking anti-communism and anti-totalitarianism. Instead of being confronted, the dark shadows from one’s own past are being shown in a new light.

  • Issue Year: 4/2005
  • Issue No: 1-2
  • Page Range: 63-86
  • Page Count: 24
  • Language: English, Macedonian