"Manjše zlo" vnovič odmerjati ali (re)interpretacija zgodovine (Nekaj razmislekov ob knjigi Borisa Mlakarja Slovensko domobranstvo)

Author(s): Janko Pleterski / Language(s): Slovenian / Issue: 1/2004

Še kot magister je kolega dr. Boris Mlakar - ob izjavi Predsedstva RS o narodni in državljanski umiritvi - napisal 20. marca 1990 za uredništvo "Borca" anketo o spravi. V njej je nekatera vprašanja zastavil tako, da je že sam in vnaprej postavil tezo, da je revolucija kriva za pojav oborožene in politično-policijske kolaboracije dela slovenske politike v času sovražne zasedbe, in v tem okviru še tezo o državljanski vojni kot določujočem dejstvu za oceno vsega tega dogajanja. S tega vidika je postavil v središče presoje "revolucijo" in ugotovitev, da "je torej tedaj bila revolucija v teku". K temu je pristavil svoje prepričanje, da je ravno to povzročilo, da so se tisti, ki so se te prihajajoče revolucije "bali", odločili za "protirevolucionarni upor", in to tako, da so se naslonili na okupatorja in sprejeli od njega orožje, kljub temu da so vedeli, da bodo označeni kot narodni izdajalci. [...]

"Vergangenheitsbewältigung" po česku

Holokaust v českém samizdatu

Author(s): Peter Hallama / Language(s): Czech / Issue: 3/2016

This is a Czech translation of ‘“Vergangenheitsbewältigung” auf Tschechisch: Der Holocaust im tschechischen Samizdat’, which is published in Peter Hallama and Stephan Stach (eds), Gegengeschichte: Zweiter Weltkrieg und Holocaust im ostmitteleuropäischen Dissens (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag 2015, pp. 237–60). The author analyses representations of the Holocaust in Czech dissident literature published as samizdat in the 1970s and 1980s. He concentrates on historical writings, but also considers journalistic contributions, memoirs, and works of belles-lettres, as well as translations of publications. In particular, the article considers two aspects that highlight the difficulties one faced and continues to face when trying to fully integrate the Holocaust into Czech national history. First, the Holocaust was often understood by the dissidents as evidence of the inhuman nature of totalitarian regimes. This interpretation, however, led to placing the persecution of the Jews by the Nazi regime on the same level as the persecution of the Czechs by the Nazi and Communist regimes. Second, if there was a reassessment or questioning of the Czech national master narrative, then topics such as home-grown antisemitism or the Holocaust were not addressed. The dissidents admitted that Czechoslovakia also had its question of guilt, but they related it to the expulsion of the German minority after the Second World War. The Holocaust, by contrast, did not generate any similar debate among the dissidents. The behaviour of Czechs during the Second World War, the attitude towards Jews, and domestic antisemitism were thus not questioned at all. The Holocaust has, according to the author, therefore tended to be overlooked or, at best, mentioned only incidentally in writing about twentieth-century Czech history – whether the authors published their texts in state-owned publishing houses or in samizdat.

"Здесь русский дух… здесь Русью пахнет!": Борьбас "русским духом" в Таллине в начале 1920-х гг

Author(s): Aurika Meimre,Antonia Nael / Language(s): Russian / Issue: 1/2014

This article is aimed at reconstructing the course of events that resulted in the relocation of a monument of Peter the Great in the capital of Estonia. The bronze standing figure of Peter by Léopold Bernstamm (unveiled in September 1910 to commemorate the bicentennial of the siege of Reval) was removed in April 1922. The reasons for its demolition were mainly ideological: for Estonians Peter the Great symbolized years of suffering under Russian rule. The controversy around Peter the Great attracted Georg Tõnisson (Gori), a graphic artist, who portrayed the czar in a series of caricatures published by Waba Maa and Meie Mats.

#someonetellcnn: The Agonistic Relationship between South and North Media Memories

Author(s): David Katiambo / Language(s): English / Issue: 10/2017

The international media stand accused for creating a negative retrospective memory about Africa through misreporting. Social media is providing an alternative channel to air counternarratives. Through Discourse Theoretical Analysis this paper uses the agonistic democracy theory to explain how Twitter is enabling Kenyans to create an optimistic prospective memory as a counter narrative to Western media’s negative retrospective memory about Africa. Mouffe’s concept of “agonism” will be utilized to conceptualize how uncivil attacks are enabling Kenyans to fend off international media misreporting. The paper unpacks how Kenyans on Twitter (KOT) used incivility against CNN to to create a national agonistic memory ahead of the 2015 Africa visit by President Obama. The paper analyses incivility at #SomeonetellCNN as a form of collective remembrance, meaning not only remembering what CNN had already said, the retrospective memory, but also remembering what CNN was expected to do, the prospective memory.

(Re)Naming Streets in Contemporary Bucharest: From Power Distribution to Subjective Biography

Author(s): Ana-Maria Niculescu-Mizil / Language(s): English / Issue: 3 (17)/2014

The present study is grounded on the premise that street names represent an embodiment of the socio-political order in the realm of everyday life (Azaryahu 2002, 135-144). It develops on three complementary axes of interest: a descriptive statistical analysis of power distribution among genders and professional categories in the current configuration of street names, a case study of Ion Câmpineanu Street as a ‘memorial landscape’ (Dwyer and Alderman 2008, 165 – 178) and the street's subjective history as it is recalled by locals in semi-structured interviews. Research’s findings sustain the idea that individuals invest personal or contextual significance endorsed with emotional resonance, in street names and rarely reflect upon the personalities naming their streets. The case study outlined Ion Câmpineanu Street as a self-contradictory, vivid landscape, an urban setting where several versions of history vindicate their memory. The analysis of street names in sector one reveals an unequal distribution among genders in favor of men, who are prominent in naming streets. The novelty in the present inquiry emerges from a gender sensitive approach upon the subject of street toponymy and social memory. Street names are understood as an embodied instrument employed in the social construction of gender in urban spaces.

(RE)SHAPING POLITICAL CULTURE AND PARTICIPATION THROUGH SOCIAL NETWORKS

Author(s): Marija Andreeva / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/2019

The influence of social networks is growing intensely. They do not only influence only certain aspects of our lives, but they also influence political participation and political culture. In recent years, this influence has been very notable. We have seen a change of policies as a result of pressure, a lot of significant political movements started via social networks. This paper concentrates on the influence of social networks on political participation and political culture. The paper tries to foresee the future implications and the intertwining of social networks and political culture and political participation. It also gives conclusions for the past, present and future implications and it gives a comparison between political participation before and after the rise of social networks. It also analyses the positive and negative implications that social network could have on political participation.

(Stief-)Mütterchen Russland - Projektionen und Mental Maps von Russland in Serbien

Author(s): Nenad Stefanov / Language(s): German / Issue: 02/2019

The article discusses the so-called “traditional Russian-Serbian friendship”. This relationship between the two states is assessed as an “invention of tradition”. The contribution examines changes in Serbian society during the 1990s which brought about a new turn towards Russia. In the mental maps that had emerged in the context of new ethno-nationalism during the late1980s, the West had initially been central and served as evidence of an allegedly original love of freedom on the part of the Serbian people. This map stood in contrast to the other republics of former Yugoslavia that were seemingly “infested” by the Vatican and Germanophilia. The experience of sanctions imposed on Serbia in 1992 and the refusal to reflect on this experience led to a re-orientation of existing mental maps. The fixation on Russia had the function to spare individuals the question of responsibility for crisis and war. Even today, this mental map serves as a relieving function in Serbia and it is increasingly coming to the fore.

(Не)видљива места сећања

Author(s): Olga Manojlović Pintar / Language(s): Serbian / Publication Year: 0

The paper analyses how personalization of tragedy of the participants of WWII was used to strengthen Yugoslav-Soviet ties in the first days after the liberation of Yugoslavia. The text also analyzes the processes of rapprochement and of establishing closer ties between the two countries during 1960s when new forms of political and cultural cooperation were based on renewed remembrance of the courage of the participants in the war. Special attention was devoted to interpretations of WWII in contemporary historiography which unearthed new data and opened new perspectives. Turning to experiences of individuals was suggested as a possibility of drawing conclusions without ideological revisions of the whole history of 20th century.

[rec.] Nicholas P. Roberts, Political Islam and the Invention of Tradition, New Academia Publishing, Washington, DC 2015, ss. 245

Author(s): Anna Zasuń / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2017

1863-1864 m. sukilimo dalyvių laidotuvės ir Vilniaus kaip baltarusių Mekos naratyvas

Author(s): Valius Venckūnas / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 102/2020

The article discusses a narrative that presents Vilnius as the Belarusian Mecca, and a manifestation of that narrative during the November 22, 2019, reburial of members of 1863–1864 uprising. The narrative presents the city as an place of pilgrimage and worship where the Belarusian nation is constantly reborn. The ceremony of the reburial, as well as the preceding discussions, received great attention in Belarus. They become a direct representation of aforementioned narrative mobilizing the fractured nation. It is imperative to understand the strategic value of this narrative not only for Belarusian society, but for the Lithuanian state as well, because of its depiction of the Lithuanian state as an instrument of Lithuanian soft power.

1923 Nüfus Mübadelesine Mizah Penceresinden Bakmak: Zümrüdüanka

Author(s): Nuray Firindioğlu Yılmaz / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 2/2017

The Greek- Turkish 1923 population exchange has played an important role in Turkish history both politically and socially. Since about 2 million Greeks and Turks were ousted from their homelands, this issue has quickly become problematic due to some main concerns and conflicts over its form and instruments, the definition and the scale of the refugees, and the legal status of their left property. These problems led the refugees to experience a number of tragic incidents from the start of the implementation of the exchange almost until it is completed. This study reviews the Greek- Turkish population exchange that has been engraved in collective memory in every respect by analyzing the texts and caricatures in the comic book, Zümrüdüanka, that reflect its idiosyncratic sense of humor.

20 godina od razbijanja SFRJ

Author(s): / Language(s): Russian,Serbian / Publication Year: 2011

30 YEARS OF TRANSFORMATION AND RECONSTRUCTION. THE SECURITY OF ROMANIA IN THE POST-COMMUNIST ERA

Author(s): Roxana Olteanu / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

In 2020, Romania celebrates 30 years since the establishment of the first contacts with NATO and three decades since the creation of its first post-communist security institutions. If the year of 1989 is one of breakup from the communist regime, the evolution of 1990 represents, therefore, the first steps for resetting most of the areas of state functioning, including the issues related to national security. The purpose of this paper is to provide a short glimpse into Romania’s security situation in 1990, in order to reveal the progress of the 30 years of mutations and reform, and to highlight that there are areas that need further improvement and lessons to be learnt. In relation to the recent past, the study operates with three concepts: understanding (the path), consolidating (the objectives already achieved) and improving (the vulnerable areas of transformation).

A Case of Successful Transitional Justice

Fritz Bauer and his Late Recognition in the Federal Republic of Germany

Author(s): Jakub Gortat / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

Germany is an example of a country which has been implementing transitional justice for decades and is still active in this field. What is more, contemporary Germans have recently come to terms with their not-so-distant past and their negligence in this area by showing the falsehood, backwardness, and injustice as negative foundations of the young Federal Republic. This article evokes the person of Fritz Bauer, the prosecutor in the state of Hessen. His struggle for human dignity and the memory of his achievements after his death exemplify an accomplished case of transitional justice and the memory of it. During his lifetime he contributed to bringing to trial numerous Nazi criminals, even at the cost of habitual threats and disregard. Forgotten for a few decades, Bauer and his legacy have been recently rediscovered and studied. Eventually, Bauer became a movie character and was finally brought back to the collective memory of Germans. The belated, but a well-deserved wave of popularity of Fritz Bauer in the German culture memory proves that reflections on the transitional justice are still topical and important.

A challenge to collective memory: Yitskhok Rudashevski’s Diary of the Vilna Ghetto

Author(s): Mindaugas Kvietkauskas / Language(s): English / Issue: 42/2018

This article aims to analyse the diary of Yitskhok Rudashevski (1927–1943), the story of its writing and publication and the existing biographical material about the author. It attempts to answer the question of what is or could be the significance of this lieu de mémoire for the current developments in Holocaust memory culture in Lithuania. The adopted definitions of cultural and collective memory and sites of memory are based on the concepts proposed by Jan and Aleida Assmann and Pierre Nora. On the one hand, the diary written by a child in the Vilnius ghetto is of major documentary, moral and aesthetic significance and stimulates individual empathy. On the other hand, the text raises acute issues reflecting a conflict between different memory narratives and interpretations of history. Pro-Soviet sympathies of the author, negative imagery of Lithuanians and certain deheroisation of the ghetto community make the text a “problematic” memory site. These challenges of the diary are interpreted as indicators showing whether contemporary Holocaust narrative in Lithuania is already mature enough to accept the dialogical forms of cultural memory.

A deltiology of memory

Author(s): Kinga Anna Gajda / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2020

Review of: Kinga Anna Gajda - The Geopolitics of Memory. A Journey to Bosnia. By: James Riding. Publisher: Ibidem Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany, 2019

A Letter to Tuzla

Author(s): Kenneth C. Asbell / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

Personal reflection honoring the progressive cultural heritage of the city of Tuzla.

A Letter to Tuzla

Author(s): Kenneth C. Asbell / Language(s): Bosnian,Croatian,Serbian / Issue: 1/2020

Personal reflection honoring the progressive cultural heritage of the city of Tuzla.

A MANIFEST OF THE ENDANGERED PAST

Author(s): Predrag Živković / Language(s): English / Issue: 26/2019

In this paper the author tries to represent the culture of memory (Kuljić 2006) which became independent in the post-socialist environment, becoming a kind of cultivated and privileged “refuge of forgetfulness” that aims to expel those traditions that are not welcome when constructing a society that is new and more vital in terms of identity. It is quite clear that these are the societies for which, not just socialism, but also other instances of historical encounter with their identity archetypes, represent the “wreck of memory,” and the abyss of warning about creation, design and emigration into a new past that is comfortable enough for them. Is this the way that each of us should go? Is it the way of collective catharsis or a systemic and ideological exorcism, which systematically creates and persecutes all those who do not conform and do not get used to the climate of “The Damned Yard” (Симић 2014)? It seems that this condition forces a man to wake up from a passionate ideological coma and become a chronicler of life turmoil, i.e. “his own war” (Prilepin 2016).

A Misbehaved Testimony of the Shoah and the Disciplines of Memory: Vera Gran: The Accused by Agata Tuszyńska in the Original and in Translation

Author(s): Agnieszka Podpora / Language(s): English / Issue: Sp. Iss./2019

Oskarżona: Vera Gran (Vera Gran: The Accused), a hybrid biographical work relating the life story and testimony of the Warsaw ghetto singer by the Polish second generation author Agata Tuszyńska, was translated to many languages. Yet, all the translations were made on the basis of the French one, which in fact reflects a strongly edited version of the original text. As the author of the article argues, the modifications introduced to Oskarżona: Vera Gran upon its release on the foreign markets go far beyond the standard editing procedures and have to do with the fact that Tuszyńska’s original text openly questions a certain fixed paradigm of representing the Holocaust and some of the socially sanctioned patterns of Shoah remembrance. The comparative analysis of the Polish and the American editions of the book presented in the article traces the most significant changes introduced to the foreign adaptation, identifying three main areas where the misbehaved testimony to the Shoah – of the survivor and the secondary witness alike – was disciplined to conform to the largely globalised discourse of Holocaust memory, subjected to the regime of conventional representation and culturally reproduced reception patterns.