Kultūrinė atmintis Antrojo pasaulinio karo metų lietuvių periodinėje spaudoje

Author(s): Titas Krutulys / Language(s): Lithuanian Issue: 45/2020

During World War II Lithuania was ruled by three completely different political regimes. In the first year Lithuania was authoritarian state ruled by group of nationalists, in 1940 Lithuania was occupied by Soviet Union and in 1941 State was occupied by Nazi Germany. All these political powers was undemocratic and propagated their ideologies. One of the most important aspect of every ideology is to suggest new concept of time. This change of perception of time could be seen in the change of cultural memory. Article try to analyze this change using the most popular Lithuanian periodical press of the period. This research analyzed main historical periods and the most popular themes represented in the main newspapers. Using theories of Anthony D. Smith and Raoul Girardet research showed what historical periods was seen positively and what negatively, what was main historical heroes and enemies; also how foreign history was represented in the periodical press. The quantitative content analysis showed that while representations of history in the so called independent Lithuania and in Lithuania occupied by Nazis was quite similar, historical representations during first Soviet occupation was unique. Qualitative content analysis showed that there was three very different paradigms of cultural memories, represented in periodical press. Lithuanian nationalist mostly tried to promote Lithuanian medieval times and especially Lithuanian dukes and historical capital Vilnius, also they tried to justify their politics creating myth of great welfare during their rule. They praised Soviet history, criticized Poland and poles, but wrote about most of the countries quite neutral. During Soviet occupation all Lithuanian history was harshly criticized and showed as negative times, this regime promoted only few Lithuanian heroes who died young or was known for their left wing politics. Main historical past represented in the newspapers was history of Soviet Union, other countries was ignored. Main enemies of Soviets was Lithuanian gentry, and Lithuanian rulers of the past.

Vyriškumas Algirdo Landsbergio novelėse

Author(s): Gabija Bankauskaitė-Sereikienė,Raminta Stravinskaitė / Language(s): Lithuanian Issue: 40 (45)/2021

In interwar and post-war societies, men were required to show endurance, courage, and emotional stability, but their traumas, caused by the experience of war and the economic, political, and social realities of the post-war period, are just started to be analysed. Algirdas Jeronimas Landsbergis (1924–2004), a playwright, prose writer, editor, literary and theatre critic of the Lithuanian diaspora, conveys these themes in his work. The images of masculinity revealed in the texts help clarify the general experience of the society hidden in the works and understand what kind of masculinity prevailed in society after the world wars changed the lives of women and men. Using K. G. Jung’s theory of analytical psychology, the article analyses A. Landsbergis’ short stories, which literature researchers less studied. Texts are explored as reflections and shapers of society, and in the case of masculinity, it is discussed what is meant by the archetypes of masculinity recorded in the literature. Based on the work of R. L. Moore and D. Gillette and J. C. Campbell, the archetypes of the divine child, the child prodigy, the Oedipus child and the hero and mature masculinity – the king, warrior, magician and lover are distinguished.

THE “TRUE” MOLDOVANS OF TRANSNISTRIA: A CASE STUDY OF IDENTITY FABRICATION IN THE FIRST YEARS OF THE USSR (1924-1940)

Author(s): Valeria Chelaru / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

The frozen conflict in Transnistria ranks among a series of interethnic clashes which broke out at the periphery of the Soviet Union in light of its dismemberment. However, Transnistria`s case, compared to other frozen conflicts in the ex-Soviet space, stands out due to the absence of interethnic animosities prior to 1989. The systemic changes caused the eruption of the conflict, and the intergroup rivalry did not necessarily derive from ethnic belonging; it was the following war in March 1992 that yielded the idea of the “Transnistrian identity”. This article re-examines how identity was created and manipulated in the MASSR, Transnistria`s political ancestor. The creation of the MASSR in 1924, with the aim to regain Bessarabia from Romania, and to spread communism outside de Soviet borders, was accompanied by a series of policies that promoted a new, local identity. These policies had taken various forms and lasted until the Soviet Union reoccupied Bessarabia in 1940. Their reinvestigation serves as opportunity of reassessing the MASSR as the prototype for identity fabrication in Transnistria. In the context of the current frozen conflict, such approach on the MASSR as a historical precedent throws fresh light on the emergence of the new “Transnistrian identity”.

Against the “Moonlight and Magnolia” myth of the American South. A new materialist approach to the dissonant heritage of slavery in the US: The case of Whitney Plantation in Wallace, LA

Author(s): Dorota Golańska / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2020

The article presents an analysis of the operations of the Whitney Plantation Museum, which opened in 2014 in Wallace, LA (USA), situated within the context of plantation heritage tourism in the American South. The argumentation offers an illustration of the significant transition, even though still of marginal character, of the dominant tendencies of representing slavery in heritage sites (plantation museums) devoted to cultivating knowledge about the history of the region. New materialist in its orientation, the analysis subscribes to the most fundamental assumption of this philosophical tendency, namely that knowledge is generated in material-semiotic ways, and applies this approach in an enquiry into the educational experience offered to visitors by this heritage site. The article argues that although the emergence of institutions such as Whitney Plantation is meant to pluralise the memorial landscape of a given community, rather than serving as multivocal spaces they tend to remain steeped in fragmentation.

Poklicne bolezni in z delom povezane bolezni v Sloveniji

Author(s): Nina Vodopivec / Language(s): Slovenian Issue: 3/2021

The author links the current systemic lack of regulation of occupational diseases in Slovenia to the socio-political changes and transformations of political relations that have taken place in the last thirty years – to the paradigm of self-responsibility in the feld of health and work and to the social understanding occupational diseases and work-related illnesses. She also focuses on the history of the occupational health and safety profession. She does not look at occupational health and safety from the biomedical viewpoint but rather fom the political-economic and socio-cultural perspective. She explains occupational health as a political and social phenomenon related to people‘s structural vulnerability. In her exploration of the experiences of work-related illness and injury, the author draws on ethnographic research with textile workers.

The new Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Centre is a Trojan horse for Putin’s hybrid war

Author(s): Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern,Jerzy Sobotta,Aleksander Palikot / Language(s): English Issue: 06 (49)/2021

An interview with Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, a historian, philologist and essayist. Interviewers: Aleksander Palikot and Jerzy Sobotta

Blindspots in Second World War History

Author(s): Kristina Smolijaninovaitė / Language(s): English Issue: 06 (49)/2021

Historical memory related to the Second World War is too complex for there to be a single version recognised around the world. This is because historical “truth” is by no means a simple matter of black and white. Addressing various blindspots and imbalances in understandings of the past may subsequently help tackle difficult historical legacies at political, legal and civil society levels.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union is still going on and it is not peaceful

Author(s): Serhii Plokhy,Adam Reichardt / Language(s): English Issue: 06 (49)/2021

A conversation with Serhii Plokhy, Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University and director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. Interviewer: Adam Reichardt

Postsocialist and Postcapitalist Questions? Far-Right Historical Narratives and the Making of a New Europe

Author(s): Agnieszka Pasieka / Language(s): English Issue: 04/2021

Despite a growing number of novel approaches to the far right and new explanatory models, one feature appears to persist in the scholarship: namely, a tendency to discuss the developments in Western Europe and in postsocialist countries separately. Bucking this trend, this article investigates the similarities between the activism of Italian and Polish far-right movements, focusing on the field of historical politics. More specifically, it investigates the ways in which the memories of World War II and accounts of victims of communism are mobilized in the two countries, as well as the question of “censorship” and “mainstreaming” of far-right historical narratives. Apart from comparing the developments in these countries, the article discusses various forms of cooperation between Polish and Italian far-right movements, which reveal their mutual influences but also the limits of transnational networking.

The Puzzle of Punitive Memory Laws: New Insights into the Origins and Scope of Punitive Memory Laws

Author(s): Igor Lyubashenko,Christian Garuka,Grażyna Baranowska,Vjeran Pavlaković,Klaus Bachmann / Language(s): English Issue: 04/2021

In recent years and decades, authoritarian regimes and illiberal democracies have passed and enforced punitive memory laws, intending to ban certain interpretations of past events or sheltering official versions of history against challenges. This comes as no surprise in countries whose governments undermine pluralism and assume the existence of a historical truth that is stable over time, invariable, and self-explanatory. But why do liberal democracies, committed to political pluralism and open debate, pass laws that penalize challenges to certain interpretations of the past and restrict freedom of speech? This article argues that liberal democracies may do so yielding to bottom–up pressure by courts and to regulate civil law disputes for which existing legislation and jurisprudence may not suffice. Based on case studies from Germany, France, Switzerland, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia, we also found punitive memory laws in liberal democracies narrower and more precise than in nonliberal states.

The Birth of Leaders: Regional Chairmen of the Solidarity Movement

Author(s): Grzegorz Wołk / Language(s): English Issue: 04/2021

The article analyzes the biographies of the regional leaders of the Solidarity union and examines the process by which activists were recruited into the social movement and subsequently rose through its ranks. Though there exists an abundant body of research on Solidarity, the recruitment process for the trade union’s middle management has never been analyzed. Such an examination of the regional leadership is important given the significant diversity that existed in the selection process. Activists were selected in regions where strikes occurred (Gdańsk and Wałęsa) and in ones where there were no strikes. This article attempts to identify these regional leaders and their role in Solidarity. It poses questions about the social movement’s center of power. Did the regional leadership represent a grassroots social movement, or were they merely carrying out orders from the center? The subject of this analysis is a group of thirty-nine chairmen comprising the regional leadership of Solidarity. The article employs classical historical analysis methods combined with elicited sources (interviews conducted with selected leaders). It presents a prosopographical analysis based on statistical, historical, and sociological data. The questions posed in the article involve such issues as the Solidarity recruitment process, the social backgrounds of the leaders, their individual personality traits and biographical features, and the goals and motivations that led them to join the movement. The analysis reveals the qualities shared by the majority of the regional leadership of Solidarity.

The Elites of Solidarity: Prosopography of Delegates for the First National Congress of Solidarity

Author(s): Piotr Osęka / Language(s): English Issue: 04/2021

The article aims at contributing to the social history of the Solidarity movement by tracing the collective biography of its elected representatives. It will focus on the life trajectories of the 900 delegates to the First National Congress of Delegates. The convention, held in Autumn 1981, is commonly perceived as a focal moment in the history of Solidarity and plays a crucial role in almost every academic narrative on the anticommunist opposition. Often seen as a first genuine Polish parliament since pre-war times, its main task was to forge the political and economic programme thus furthering the revolution. The projected research will draw on genuine methodology, combining prosopographical and oral history approach. The research will address mainly the following issues: what social strata the elites came from, what was their cultural and educational background, what motives/causes/expectations drove them to engage with Solidarity, to what generations did they belong, how did they embrace the character of political transformation of 1989, and to what extent and how did they get involved in the political, economic, and social life of post-communist Poland. In general, the paper seeks to shed a new light on our understanding of Solidarity’s social roots—for instead examining to what extent the contesting, revolutionary elites were a product of the Stalinist social advancement. It also tries to depict the level of continuity between the elites of 1981 and post-1989—thus testing the common theories whether the Third Republic is (or is not) rooted in the legacy of Solidarity.

Circulation, Conditions, Claims: Examining the Politics of Historical Memory in Eastern Europe

Author(s): George Soroka,Félix Krawatzek / Language(s): English Issue: 01/2022

Across Eastern Europe how the past is remembered has become a crucial factor for understanding present-day political developments within and between states. In this introduction, we first present the articles that form part of this special section through a discussion of the various methods used by the authors to demonstrate the potential ways into studying collective memory. We then define the regional characteristics of Eastern Europe’s mnemonic politics and the reasons for their oftentimes conflictual character. Thereafter we consider three thematic arenas that situate the individual contributions to this special section within the wider scholarly debate. First, we examine the institutional and structural conditions that shape the circulation of memory and lead to conflictive constellations of remembering; second, we discuss how different regime types and cultural rules influence the framing of historical episodes, paying attention to supranational integration and the role of technological change; third, we consider the different types of actors that shape the present recall of the past, including political elites, social movements, and society at large. We conclude by identifying several promising avenues for further research.

Populism and Memory: Legislation of the Past in Poland, Ukraine, and Russia

Author(s): Nikolay Koposov / Language(s): English Issue: 01/2022

The rise of historical memory, which began in the 1970s and 1980s, has made the past an increasingly important soft-power resource. At its initial stage, the rise of memory contributed to the decay of self-congratulatory national narratives and to the formation of a “cosmopolitan” memory centered on the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity and informed by the notion of state repentance for the wrongdoings of the past. Laws criminalizing the denial of these crimes, which were adopted in “old” continental democracies in the 1980s and 1990s, were a characteristic expression of this democratic culture of memory. However, with the rise of national populism and the formation of the authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, and Poland in the 2000s and 2010s, the politics of memory has taken a significantly different turn. National populists are remarkably persistent in whitewashing their countries’ history and using it to promote nationalist mobilization. This process has manifested itself in the formation of new types of memory laws, which shift the blame for historical injustices to other countries (the 1998 Polish, the 2000 Czech, the 2010 Lithuanian, the June 2010 Hungarian, and the 2014 Latvian statutes) and, in some cases, openly protect the memory of the perpetrators of crimes against humanity (the 2005 Turkish, the 2014 Russian, the 2015 Ukrainian, the 2006 and the 2018 Polish enactments). The article examines Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian legislation regarding the past that demonstrates the current linkage between populism and memory.

Konne figury władzy

Author(s): Marcin Laberschek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 19/2020

The tradition of equestrian monuments is over 2,500 years old. The origins of such monuments date back to ancient Greece and Rome, and their numerous manifestations can be found today not only in Europe but on all continents. These monuments are not accidental – they perform a specific social function which is indicated both by the symbolism of a horse and rider, as well as by the figure of the rider himself. By analysing equestrian statues, the author of the paper attempts to answer the question: What is the function and social significance of equestrian statues as figures of power and how has this significance changed over time? Four main periods of power, manifested in equestrian statues, have been distinguished: 1) the ancient period of absolute power, 2) the medieval period of divine power, 3) the modern period of absolute power, 4) the modern period of democratic power.

Statuy pod gilotynę

Author(s): Marcin Darmas / Language(s): Polish Issue: 19/2020

This text is a multi-faceted analysis – economic, symbolic, and ideological – of the destruction of monuments commemorating white historical figures such as Josephine de Beauharnais and Victor Schœlcher in the summer of 2020 in French overseas departments. Violence, racism, the logics of repentance, and revolutionary elements indicate the existence of a significant crisis in the Fifth Republic and, perhaps, announce a new order. The text also contains the hypothesis that acts of vandalism are part of the global tendency to reject the colonial past.

Genezy upadków

Author(s): Julia Harasimowicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 19/2020

O roli ortografii w rozumieniu historii

Author(s): Piotr Herbich / Language(s): Polish Issue: 19/2020

O pomnikach nie tylko społecznie

Author(s): Jan Mizerski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 19/2020

Reviews

Author(s): Anna Horeczy,Piotr Kuligowski,Maciej Górny,Svetlana Vassileva-Karagyozova / Language(s): English Issue: 124/2021

Reviews of: 1. Saskia Metan, Wissen über das östliche Europa im Transfer. Edition, Übersetzung und Rezeption des “Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis” (1517), Wien–Köln–Weimar, 2019, Böhlau, 316 pp., 2 tables, 1 ill., index; series: Bausteine zur Slavischen Philologie und Kulturgeschichte. Neue Folge, Reihe A: Slavistische Forschungen, 91; 2. Catherine Brice (ed.), Exile and the Circulation ofPolitical Practices, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2020, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK, 225 pp.; 3. Vedran Duančić, Geography and Nationalist Visions ofInterwar Yugo-slavia, Cham, 2020, Palgrave Macmillan, 285 pp., ills, indexes; series: Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe; 4. ЕвелинаДжевиецка [Ewelina Drzewiecka], Юбилейноимодерно. Кирило-методиевскиятразказпрезсоциализмавБългария, София, 2020, Кирило-МетодиевскиятнаученцентърприБАН, 232 pp., bibliography, ills; series: Кирило-Методиевскистудии, 29.