Transitions Online_Society: Marshal Konev Statue Poised to Retreat? – 3 October
A recent decision to move a communist-era statue in Prague reveals the perils of reassessing the past. By James Duffy, Lachlan Hyatt and Emily Mason
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A recent decision to move a communist-era statue in Prague reveals the perils of reassessing the past. By James Duffy, Lachlan Hyatt and Emily Mason
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News highlights: Russia’s Olympic nightmare; Serbia’s unwelcome patriarch; tourism in Uzbekistan; Holocaust remembrance in Lithuania; and the Russian-Estonian border.
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News highlights: In the news today: Germany, Poland, and WWII; Ukrainian women in the military; a hidden gem in Zagreb; vintage cars in Prague; and Tajik family ties.
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Regional highlights: controversial wartime celebrations; Uzbekistan and Afghanistan; a new old Chisinau synagogue; a Russian humanoid robot; and Ukrainian boxer Vasyl Lomachenko.
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Travelling by air is perceived to be the safest way of transportation. Since the very beginning of the evolution of this amazing industry, safety aspect was one of the highest priority. Taking into consideration the specifications and features of aviation, it is no wonder why it relied from the very beginning on how safe it would look like for the public opinion. The standards have been developed over decades by each country as well as in the order of international cooperation. That led to the establishment of common policies, guidelines and standards that were agreed to be uphold in the sky. Such standards are not easy either to create or to maintain and execute. An example of the European Union and the United States of America in that matter shows how complex those regulations has to be and how complicated is to establish such relations.
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Personal reflection honoring the progressive cultural heritage of the city of Tuzla.
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Personal reflection honoring the progressive cultural heritage of the city of Tuzla.
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Review of the war documentary "Miss Sarajevo" and the tragedy of the double-bind position of the subaltern.
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Review of the war documentary "Miss Sarajevo" and the tragedy of the double-bind position of the subaltern.
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Review of: Meike Wulf: Shadowlands. Memory and History in Post-Soviet Estonia. Berghahn. New York – Oxford 2016. X, 246 S., Ill., graph. Darst. ISBN 978-1-78533-073-5. ($ 90,–.). Reviewed by Lars Fredrik Stöcker.
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Review of: Česká paměť. Národ, dějiny a místa paměti [Tschechisches Gedächtnis. Nation, Geschichte und Erinnerungsorte.] Hrsg. von Radka Šustrová und Lubomíra Hédlová. (Historie, Bd. 1.) Academia [u. a.]. Praha 2014. 457 S. ISBN 978-80-200-2411-4. (CZK 395,–.). Reviewed by Frauke Wetzel.
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Review of: Geschichtspolitik in Europa seit 1989. Hrsg. von Etienne François , Kornelia Kończal, Robert Traba und Stefan Troebst. (Moderne europäische Geschichte, Bd. 3.) Wallstein. Göttingen 2013. 560 S., Ill. ISBN 978-3-8353-1068-1. (€ 42,–.). Reviewed by Klaus Ziemer.
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The “Memorial turn” actualized discussions around a number of concepts that have become established in historical science, including such an analytical category as the event. The paper considers this category in the “history-memory”, turning to the study of mechanisms of transformation of the historical fact into a symbol and an image that defines the structure of a national-state narrative. In this paradigm, the social context of the event, as well as its perception by active participants, witnesses, descendants, historians of different generations, are equally focused on, and the principle cognitive setting is to take into account the probabilistic nature of events and the subjectivity of the actors. The patterns of using the images and symbols of historical events in the politics of memory and the practice of official commemorations were determined; their characteristic features were revealed: a close connection with the political process, a surge of activity in referring to images of the past, their conscious choice, increasing their influence on the mass historical consciousness of society. It was emphasized that the limitations of the impact of professionals on mass consciousness are not least determined by the social functions of a modern historical myth.
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Memories of the forced migration of Germans at the end of Second World War and the history of former German territories in Eastern Central Europe have been the subject of lively discussion both among academics and the general public. This study examines the political controversies surrounding the memories of flight and expulsion in the divided Germany of the 1950s and 1960s. How did the balance of forces within the ‘politics of memory’ shift? Which side, at what time, could claim to be winning the battle of opinion? In its analysis, the study takes as its two principal examples the Landsmannschaft Schlesien (Organisation of Expellees from Silesia, LS) and the Helmut-von-Gerlach-Gesellschaft (Helmut von Gerlach Society, HvGG, a society promoting German-Polish rapprochement). In its interpretation of history, the LS emphasised a purely German character of the Eastern territories and the coercive nature of the migration. By contrast, the HvGG’s interpretation stressed the social conflicts (class struggle) in the Eastern territories between a minority: German capitalists, and the majority: Polish workers, and talked of an orderly resettlement of the Germans. From the manifold and complex past, both LS and HvGG deliberately chose suitable examples which could be used as arguments in the dispute over the Oder-Neisse border. There arose an undertow in the politics of memory: those arguments which pointed to the German character of the Eastern territories and to forcible expulsion were used by the LS as arguments against the Oder-Neisse border. By contrast, all those aspects which indicated social conflict in the Eastern territories, were used by the HvGG as an argument for the Oder-Neisse border. In the initial period following 1945 the LS and the other expellee organisations could claim to be winning the battle of historical interpretation. From 1956/57 onwards the expellee organisations were gradually obliged to retreat, as a relaxation in international tension together with the light shone by judicial and academic investigations on Nazi Crimes cast doubt on the expellee organisations’ view of history and their demands for a revision of the border. The HvGG in its influence was, however, unable to gain all the ground from which the LS had retreated. Its interpretation of history was simply to remote from the personal experiences of many refugees and expellees. In addition, more and more Germans, both in East and West (particularly in the rising generation), increasingly displayed indifference to the memory of German history in Eastern Europe.
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In the early years of what is generally known as the Third Republic, which was brought to an end by the 1997 Constitution, the politics of history and memory reflected the new Polish society’s search for a fresh conception of itself, a conception that would displace that of communist times. To this end a specific effort towards the creation and search for historical continuities was characteristic of this stage: new and renewed national themes, new and renewed rituals, symbols and political myths formed important elements in political psychology and political culture. These were not only used to create a new identity, but also to legitimise the revolution and the new political system. As will be shown, the historical memory of the Second Republic, in particular of its founder and dictator Józef Piłsudski, as well as of the (negatively perceived) Soviet occupation and hegemony over Poland, became the focus of the politics of memory in public discourse. In this process, the problematic history of German-Polish relations was all but excluded, in order to build up a new, positive national image, as well as from political necessity, in the efforts to join NATO and the EU. The memory of the German crimes committed during the Second World War was now – in contrast to position in the communist era – just one element in historical consciousness and collective memory. Hence the culture of memory as a whole was characterised on the one hand by linking up with the historical traditions of the Second Republic, and on the other by attempts to remove the boundaries to the culture of memory set under communism. Thus the change in the culture of memory reflects political change, i.e. the change of system, as Poles were now able to set their own markers in the culture of memory. Since the end of the 1990s, it has become ever clearer that what was really happening was a form of suppression of historical memory, especially with regard to German-Polish relations.
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Die Entwicklung der deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft im 20. Jahrhundert ist seit einigen Jahren Gegenstand intensiver wissenschafts- und historiographiegeschichtlicher Reflexionen.
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Prior to Germany’s unification in 1990, the official memory of the Second World War developed differently in the two German states. The first period that marked a divergence in memory was that of the Allied occupation which lasted from 1945 to 1949. This was followed by a long period when both states built their own narratives of the Nazi past, and created their own response to the guilt for the committed crimes. With unification came a consensus that is now at risk of being undermined.
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Dariusz Stola w rozmowie z Bartoszem Bartosikiem. Wojownicza polityka pamięci przynosi swym zwolennikom korzyści, więc będą ją kontynuować i znajdą naśladowców. To, że są to korzyści partykularne, krótkotrwałe i okupione wielkimi stratami dla dobra wspólnego, najwyraźniej nie jest dla nich tak ważne.
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W ostatnich latach jedną z najważniejszych form porządkowania sieci muzeów staje się przypisywanie ich do jednego z dwóch obozów. „Nasze” muzea buduje się przeciw „ich” muzeom. „Obce” placówki otacza się kordonem sanitarnym, przejmuje, restrukturyzuje, w ostateczności równoważy siłą przekazu „swoich”.
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