"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.

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

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

1923 Nüfus Mübadelesine Mizah Penceresinden Bakmak: Zümrüdüanka

Author(s): Nuray Firindioglu Yilmaz / 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

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 párizsi béketárgyalások a kezdődő hidegháború kontextusában

Author(s): Barnabás Vajda / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 3/2017

The study makes a research into the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947 and its links with the unfolding Cold War. The author considers both the negotiation phase as well as the conference phase of the Paris peace process, from late-1945 until late-1947, and analyses the whole peace process in the wider context of international diplomacy. The main conclusions of the study are the following: (i) the process of the Paris Peace Conference as a case study shows the actual process how the relations between the two superpowers, the US and the Soviet Union, derailed form a cooperative phase to an open hostility; (ii) during the Paris Peace Conference we can already observe many signs of both strategical and ideological distrust, which (iii) became visible right after the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty on February 10, 1947 thus contributing significantly to the long set of superpower conflicts that we mark as the early Cold War.

A vallásszabadság mint európai alapjog egyes mai dilemmái

Author(s): Dávid Gyero / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 3/2018

This articlepresents some of the current dilemmas around religious freedom as a fundamental right in the European Union, and contributes to its appreciation as one of the main values of European cultural heritage. 2018 was a good year for this research, as it offered the 450th anniversary of the oldest European declaration to promote religious tolerance and diversity: the Edict of Torda. In the religious context of the churches, the terms religious freedom, religious tolerance, and freedom of conscience and thought are often joined together, or even mixed up sometimes; their legal meaning is, however, distinct or even incompatible. Today, the social and political relevance of these terms is nevertheless consistent and consonant, and gives a chance to consider their inquiry as timely and even necessary. In the 21st century, religious freedom is, in theory, not only acknowledged as part of the European culture, but also recognized by the European Union as a fundamental right. At the same time, the social and political impacts on Europe challenge the unconditional expressions of religious freedom. In European communities we are witnesses to new forms of violation of this right. The religious map of the continent is more diverse than ever, and the coexistence of many nations and religions is growing. Therefore, the terms and conditions of this symbiosis ask for new forms of regulation as well. As a foundation of everyday life, religious freedom needs to be included in new initiatives in education, promotion, and protection.

Ak Parti’nin Düzen Kurucu Diş Politika Söylemi Ve Ortadoğu

Author(s): Gökhan Telatar / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 3/2015

The Ak Party administration argued that Turkey has neglected its historical legacy and could not use the advantages of its rich historical potential in its foreign policy. However Turkey was supposed to pursue an active foreign policy that goes beyond security fears and directs developments rather than having a reaction-based foreign policy as a center country with multiple regional identities. Such a foreign policy would have transformed Turkey from the center country to the global power. To this end, the Ak Party administration asserted that Turkey should pursue an order building foreign policy. In other words, Turkey was supposed to lead the changes of regional and international orders. Upon the US’s initiation of a new Middle Eastern order building period in the context of the war on terrorism after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, Turkey embarked to influence on this period. The aim of this article is analyzing of the Ak Party administration’s order building role in the case of its Middle East policies after the September 11 era. It will be examined whether Turkey has been successful in acting as an order building actor in the Middle East in the formation of new order after the September 11 era. Thus it will have been revealed which consequences should be taken from the Ak Party administration’s policies in the new Middle Eastern order building period between Iraq war and the beginning of the Arab Spring. Finally, the Ak Party administration’s policies toward the Arab Spring that has been changing Middle East order again will be reviewed in order to analyze whether the administration has been successful to take consequences and to revise its policies toward the Middle East conform to these lessons.

ANTIFAŠIZAM KAO MESTO SEĆANJA: ČITANJE IZ PERSPEKTIVE 21. VEKA

Author(s): Angela Richter / Language(s): Serbian / Issue: 1/2017

One of the motives to write this article was the statement that “there is no common remembrance culture“ (Kolditz). On the one hand, this necessitates a plurality of memories, but on the other, it bears a risk of revisionism and relativisation of the antifascist struggle and its societal and cultural legacies. That is why I decided to look back at the recent Yugoslav literary past and evoke protagonists, topics and auctorial positions which made antifascism as the place of memory an integral part of the cultural discourse. It should be stressed that the authors whose works I introduced in this article also critically looked at the mythologems of the SFRY. Hence, this kind of analysis shows that the narratives of remembrance, despite the efforts of the ruling ideology to make them homogenous and indisputable, can be subverted and questioned, especially within and by literature which itself deals with narration and narrativization. Special focus on the play Hrvatski Faust (Croatian Faust, 1981) by Slobodan Šnajder is expressive: by establishing a parallelism among the action and the protagonists in the time of the NDH and the following communist period, the author suggests the congruency between the repressive policies of the Ustasha but also of the Yugoslav, antifascist establishment. Being a valuable literary document of the resistance to repression in any system, this play also questions the exploitation of the antifascist narrative as the mythologeme which undermines the critique of the authoritarian politics effectuated by the declared antifascist state. Conclusions of this article centre on the need to critically revaluate the past, but also to persist in defending values represented by antifascism as the place of memory and the foundation of the present and future society of humanity and justice.

Antigone’s stance amongst Slovenia’s undead

Author(s): Rachel Aumiller / Language(s): English / Issue: 29/2017

Memorialization in the form of the architectural statue can suggest that our stance towards the past is concrete while memorials in the form of repeated social activity represent reconciliation with the past as a continual process. Enacted memorials suggest that reconciliation with the past is not itself a thing of the past. Each generation must grapple with its inherited memories, guilt, and grief and self-consciously take its own stance towards that which came before it. This article considers Dominik Smole’s post World War II rewrite of Antigona as an enacted memorial within the context of socialist Yugoslavia. The practice of restaging Antigona in Slovenia may be seen as the practice of meta-memorialization, which routinely returns to the past while openly weighing the dangers of awakening the unburied dead against the dangers of letting the unaddressed conflicts of the past sleep.

Arapski nacionalizam: uspon, slom i posljedice jedne ideologije

Author(s): Davorka Matic / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 2/2018

The Arab Spring is one of the main triggers of the contemporary Middle East crisis. Indirectly, it strengthened the radical wing of the Islamist movement, led to the wars in Syria and Yemen, intensified regional competition, and destabilised the region. However, this regional instability is not a recent phenomenon. It has its roots in the aftermath of the First World War when the combination of internal and external factors transformed this previously tranquil region into a high-risk zone. The main ideological force in the Middle East in the 1950s, Arab nationalism, ceased to play an important role in the contemporary interArab relations. Still, it would be a mistake not to consider it at least partially responsible for the present-day situation in the region. The article focusses on the developmental dynamics of Arab nationalism. That entails the analysis of the circumstances under which its liberal, pro-European discourse has been gradually transformed into the authoritarian Pan-Arabism, of its impact on the political arrangement and relations in the region, as well as the analysis of the reasons that caused the idea of Arab political unification to cease functioning as a significant framework of individual and collective action. Lastly, the article discusses the political legacy of Arab nationalism. It withdrew from the political scene of the Middle East but has left behind the autocratic regimes determined to stay in power at all cost. These repressive regimes, permanently at “war” with their own citizens and with hegemonic aspirations towards neighbouring countries, are Arab nationalism’s political legacy that bears a significant responsibility for the violence that engulfed the region after the collapse of the Arab Spring and for the resulting Middle East nightmare.

Architectural monumentalism in transitional Albania

Author(s): Romeo Kodra / Language(s): English / Issue: 29/2017

This essay is focused on the artistic concept of monumentalization, in this case in architecture and urban planning, and, through some historical examples, investigates and traces the role of this concept in relation with the construction of representative political power. The chosen context is that of Albania, and more specifically Tirana, during the last 100 years, where three main political models - fascism, state socialism and contemporary neoliberal practices - with their analogies and developments in terms of relation with arts, have produced subjectivities and generated meanings in public space.

Armáda, její doktrína a organisace

Author(s): Editor Vojenské rozhledy - Czech Military Review / Language(s): Czech / Issue: 4/2017

V říjnu 1938 byl ve Vojenských rozhledech zveřejněn článek, ve kterém se jeho autorpodplukovník Karel Veit zamýšlí nad doktrinálními principy a organizační strukturouČeskoslovenské armády. Je zřejmé, že text byl napsán před všeobecnou mobilizací(23. 9. 1938) a před podepsáním Mnichovské dohody (29. 9. 1938). Redakci se přestopříspěvek jevil aktuální, proto se rozhodla jej zveřejnit. Nikdo tehdy nemohl tušit, žese za necelých 5 měsíců geopolitická situace změní tak radikálně, že se veškeré plányi odhodlání k obraně republiky stanou součástí smutné historie. Z následujícího textu,který vám v tomto čísle přinášíme, můžeme čerpat inspiraci i dnes. Je nejen doklademo odhodlanosti armády splnit svá poslání za jakýchkoliv podmínek, zároveň je takézáznamem omylů, jež se naplno projevily až ve světle toho, co přinesl pozdější vývoj.

Around the Bloc: Bulgaria Under Pressure to Stop Neo-Nazi March

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/06/2018

For 15 years, extremists have annually honored a Nazi ally accused of signing death warrants for thousands of Jews.

Around the Bloc: Croatian Politicians Divided Over Proposal to Revive WWII-Era Salute

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 03/06/2018

Historical commission issues recommendations that Ustashe-era salute could be used under certain circumstances, while some argue that it should be buried altogether.

Around the Bloc: Far-Right Croats Commemorate Bleiburg Massacre

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 05/15/2018

Some say that the event, which the Croatian parliament sponsors, has become the largest annual gathering of neo-Nazis in Europe.