From the shadows to the light: elite commemorations and memory politics after the war of a Thousand Days in Colombia, 1904–1910

This article explores whether individuals should feel proud or ashamed of national history, and proposes that individuals need to view national history with a balanced moral attitude - accepting both the pride brought by common achievements and the shame caused by past injustices. Only by combining the two can we shape a clear and genuine national identity. The article analyzes the dynamic relationship between historical memory, identity building, and the coexistence of pride and shame by comparing the cases of Belgium, Rwanda, and China. The Flemish and Walloon regions in Belgium have formed two different attitudes of protectionism and pluralistic inclusiveness due to their different historical trajectories; After experiencing the trauma of genocide, Rwanda has transformed its attitude from shame to pride through national reconciliation and economic reform; China, while remembering the historical humiliation of the destruction of the Yuanmingyuan, takes pride in the achievements of ancient civilization represented by the Sanxingdui site. In addition, the article also takes Papua New Guinea and Myanmar as examples, pointing out that the construction of national identity needs to be based on their own national conditions and to find a balance between reflection and inheritance. Ultimately, it is emphasized that in the context of globalization, balancing historical attitudes helps cultivate a comprehensive national cultural identity, promote inclusive narratives, and unite citizens.

Since the end of the Angolan conflict in 2002, the ruling Movemento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) party has been promoting a ‘master narrative’ of ‘peace and reconstruction’, through which the Angolan conflict is re-signified as a merely technical issue, and the question of ‘national reconciliation’ is limited to the reconstruction of infrastructures. Conversely, post-war memory politics revisits the past only selectively. While the history of the independence struggle is revised and politicised, the post-independence Angolan conflict is notably absent from public discourse, as the MPLA's ambivalent role in contested events precludes the stabilisation of the civil war as ‘patriotic history’. Departing from scholarship on memory politics in post-liberation regimes, this article analyses the discursive strategies and performative acts employed in these processes, and looks at the symbolic and material effects of this ‘technical’ hegemonic discourse in the country's capital, Luanda. As national reconciliation is limited to the reconstruction of infrastructures, the master narrative of the ‘New Angola’ is also physically imposed on the urban cityscape; similarly, any substantive political dialogue about the war is precluded as a threat to the ‘gains of peace’, which are measured again in purely material terms of the built environment.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the politics of memory as a broad system of cultural practices and communications in modern Yakutia in the context of the development of cinema as a segment of national identity. The author analyzes the role of historical politics in the development of national memory and identity in the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia in the context of the visuality of modern culture. Methodologically, the article is based on the principles proposed in the memorial and visual turns, which significantly changed the vectors of memory studies, actualizing the principles of interdisciplinarity. The novelty of the study lies in the analysis of common and unique features of the functioning of visual dimensions in the politics of memory in Yakutia. The article analyzes 1) visualization strategies of memorial culture, 2) modern Yakut films as elements of modern mnemonic space, 3) the role of visual practices in the development of the memorial canon. The article presents a broad understanding of the historical politics of memory. The author believes that the politics of memory should not be limited only to the activity of specialized institutions and professional politicians who manipulate the facts of the past to solve the problems of the ruling elites. In this article, the politics of memory is analyzed through the prism of national cinema, perceived as one of the forms of constructing images of the past. National cinema, in the context of the politics of memory, solves tasks similar to the same ones of institutionalized actors, but does it by different methods. Therefore, in this article the impact of historical politics to the development of national identity is shown through the prism of the culture of memory and the memorial canon. The results of the study suggest that representatives of the Yakut national intelligentsia are the main actors in historical politics because they construct memorial culture contexts of collective memory visualization. It is assumed that visual forms of memory complement the traditional narrative-discursive strategies for constructing images of the past in the Yakut identity and common mnemonic space.

The article reveals the continuity of the value foundations of Russian identity, their representations in periods of war in the socio-political discourse, and the politics of memory. The methodology proposed for addressing the issue is an updated version of the civilizational approach, drawing on the insights gained from memory studies and political science in the research of the politics of memory and its interconnection with national identity. The socio-political discourse of 1914 is examined, reflecting the understanding of Russia’s goals and the meaning of its struggle against Germany and its allies during the onset of the First World War. It is argued that the war was seen as a confrontation of values, a struggle against the anti-Christian tendencies of the West embodied in Germany’s politics. The use of images from the Patriotic War of 1812, past wars with the “Teutons” to justify Russia’s liberating mission is shown in the politics of memory of 1914. The use of images from the First World War and other wars in the modern politics of memory is analyzed. Its intensification since 2022 is highlighted. Similar to 1914, Russia’s struggle is represented as resistance to the evil spawned by the West, the protection of true Christian values. However, unlike the discourse of 1914, where Germany was portrayed as the embodiment of Western degeneration and Russia was part of the coalition of Western powers, in the modern discourse, the united position of the West is presented as a result of its degeneration. The commonalities and differences in the discourses of 1914 and the present confirm the connection between history and the current reality, “posing questions” to the past, and the continuity of the basic elements of the value structure of Russian civilization and national identity.

The article is devoted to the Bleiburg myth in the politics of memory in modern Croatia. In mid-May 1945 the contingents which were trying to move to the West and avoid the possible reprisals against them by the victorious communists were transferred to the Yugoslav partisans by the British military administration. Among them prevailed the members of Croatian Ustasha and Slovene Home Guard, but there were also representatives of other nationalities of Yugoslavia. Soon after the war all the victims of the massacres that took place in 1945 and those who died from hunger and illness during the transfer were Croatized through the efforts of the Croatian emigration. After the collapse of Yugoslavia and during the war (1991–1995), the Bleiburg myth began to acquire official status. The return of Ustasha soldiers as heroes to the public sphere under F. Tudjman was due to the concept of «national reconciliation», which was carried out not through awareness of guilt and acceptance of responsibility for the crimes committed, but through their full or partial justification.The first part of the article reviews the research literature on the Bleiburg myth, the stages of its formation and functional significance. The second part examines the public debate around the Sarajevo mass for the murdered and other commemorative events in the anniversary in May 2020. They are compared with the evaluations of the Bleiburg narrative-ritual complex expressed in the literature.The 75th anniversary of Bleiburg commemorated in an atmosphere of fatigue from the restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic and on the eve of the Croatian parliamentary elections, demonstrated deep social division, the contested character of history and the political interest in discussing this tragedy. Comparison of the research literature with publications in the mass press indicates the obviousness of the functional model of the Bleiburg myth for a significant segment of Croatian society. Although the demand for renewal of the memorial repertoire seems to have increased, it is still not enough for the transition to the new politics of memory.

This scoping review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the contemporary studies regarding ethnic and national identities written in the Russian language. The study reveals major contexts and patterns of the operationalization of the concepts. The scoping review is based on the framework outlined by Arksey and O’Malley, with qualitative content analysis as its primary method. Samples from 114 papers were analyzed to find existing approaches to identity studies and conceptualization. Explicit and implicit identity definitions and identity attributes were mapped and coded. The research found that scholars tend to provide original definitions and relate identity to consciousness. Implying the idea of a person’s uniqueness, identity is often regarded as rooted in memory, hence the number of mentions of memory studies and memory politics in the reviewed articles. Another finding is that multiple and/or complex identities are widely investigated, and these identity types are given original names, mostly compound. With a great number of identity types, there is still a common understanding of identity as a constructed, dynamic phenomenon. The study concludes that identity is a common value-charged notion for Russian academic discourse, with national and ethnic identities being at the heart of the ongoing studies. The paper concentrates on identities of large groups, which is viewed as a politically sensitive issue, closely intertwined with the view of identity as a factor and resource of the development of society. Main topics are politics, history, representation, dynamics, plurality, communication, cultural factors, and territory. The analysis of the identity studies contributes to professional discourse by illuminating how concepts of ethnic and national identities are operationalized and communicated in the Russian-language academic community, thus enhancing cross-cultural understanding and facilitating more effective professional communication in related fields. Given the limitations, the findings identify the main patterns of concept usage, point to research gaps, and provide a basis for future research.

This scoping review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the contemporary studies regarding ethnic and national identities written in the Russian language. The study reveals major contexts and patterns of the operationalization of the concepts. The scoping review is based on the framework outlined by Arksey and O’Malley, with qualitative content analysis as its primary method. Samples from 114 papers were analyzed to find existing approaches to identity studies and conceptualization. Explicit and implicit identity definitions and identity attributes were mapped and coded. The research found that scholars tend to provide original definitions and relate identity to consciousness. Implying the idea of a person’s uniqueness, identity is often regarded as rooted in memory, hence the number of mentions of memory studies and memory politics in the reviewed articles. Another finding is that multiple and/or complex identities are widely investigated, and these identity types are given original names, mostly compound. With a great number of identity types, there is still a common understanding of identity as a constructed, dynamic phenomenon. The study concludes that identity is a common value-charged notion for Russian academic discourse, with national and ethnic identities being at the heart of the ongoing studies. The paper concentrates on identities of large groups, which is viewed as a politically sensitive issue, closely intertwined with the view of identity as a factor and resource of the development of society. Main topics are politics, history, representation, dynamics, plurality, communication, cultural factors, and territory. The analysis of the identity studies contributes to professional discourse by illuminating how concepts of ethnic and national identities are operationalized and communicated in the Russian-language academic community, thus enhancing cross-cultural understanding and facilitating more effective professional communication in related fields. Given the limitations, the findings identify the main patterns of concept usage, point to research gaps, and provide a basis for future research.

World War I led to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires, generating widespread political upheaval across Europe that provided numerous ethnic groups within those former empires the opportunity to break free and begin the process of independent nation-building. New nations need to create a history for themselves and their people to legitimate their existence. Estonia was one such nation. It was forced to fight a War of Independence at the very beginning of its existence as a separate entity to establish its right to statehood. This war served as Estonia’s founding myth and even while it was still being fought, the war was integrated into the narrative of the Estonian people’s great, centuries-long struggle for liberation from the yoke of Baltic German oppression. The achievement of independence was seen as the culmination of Estonian history. This article explores the customs that evolved for commemorating Independence Day from the perspective of performative, collective memory. These customs form the basis for analysing the shifts that took place in the politics of memory and history when a coup d’etat carried out in March of 1934 established an authoritarian regime in Estonia in place of parliamentary democracy. Thenceforth the narrative was adjusted so that the culmination of Estonian history was no longer merely the achievement of independence. Instead, the narrative claimed that independence was won when Estonians defeated their Baltic German historical enemy once and for all. The way that such ideological precepts were reflected in commemorative practices is examined together with the corresponding implications for the creation of a national Estonian identity. KEYWORDS: Estonian history, collective memory, commemorative practice, Independence Day, national days, national flag, national identity, propaganda

(2002). The Politics of Memory in Thailand and Australia: National identity, the media and the military. Media History: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 77-88.

The article summarizes the main results of a recent discussion on the relationship between national identities and national variants of the politics of memory in relation to global historical events of the 20 th century. This discussion took place from April 1 to June 30, 2020 as part of the annual Internet conference of the Altai School of Political Studies. The introduction to the article provides a brief overview of the main directions of already existing research on this topic in Russian and foreign literature. The content of the 30 reports submitted to the Internet conference is characterized, in which the comprehension of events that have left a deep imprint on the public consciousness (world wars, revolutions, the collapse of empires and multinational states, processes of decolonization, Cold War, etc.) is considered. For a specific analysis, the reports are selected that are closest to the chosen topic. They are divided into three semantic blocks: 1) Identities and comprehension of the past in the context of a pandemic; 2) Postcolonial identities and working through the past; 3) The trauma of genocide: the identities of “perpetrators” and “victims”. The analysis shows that the comprehension and historical assimilation of a number of events is still far from complete. In many countries, the "politics of memory" in relation to the most important historical events and symbols is used in the construction of national identities, in the legitimization of the most important steps in domestic and foreign policy. On the other hand, the formed national identity can significantly influence the memory policy pursued in the country. Therefore, further comparative study of the variants of “memory politics” used in the world, associated with the formation of identities, is an urgent scientific task.

Loring M. Danforth and Riki Van Boeschoten, Children of the Greek Civil War: Refugees and the Politics of Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. 352 pp. Loring M. Danforth and Riki Van Boeschoten offer a masterful, original, and rich ethnographic analysis of the evacuation of children, self-identified as Greeks and Macedonians, from their homes in northern Greece by both parties in the Greek Civil War of 1946-1949, namely the royalist right-wing government and the Greek Communist Party. The refugee children-that is, children who were usually between the ages of three and 14, though often younger or older children as well, who were forced to leave [their] home[s] and country of origin because of a well-founded fear of (265)-were evacuated to homes operated by the Greek Communist Party in Eastern Europe and to paidopoleis (literally meaning children's cities) by the Greek government in locations throughout Greece. Based on archival research and ten years of fieldwork in multiple locales around the world, the authors explore in three neatly organized and tightly knit parts the intersection between the stories of lived experiences as told by individual refugee children after the end of the Cold War and the history of the Greek Civil War. They provide pioneering insights into a still controversial episode in Greece's modern history and maintain a remarkably balanced and sensitive approach, whereby a wide range of personal experiences and perspectives on the Civil War is presented and analyzed in a sophisticated manner. For the non-specialists in the ethnography of Greece, the authors make strong theoretical contributions to the fields of refugee studies, the anthropology of children and childhood, and the politics of memory. Danforth and Van Boeschoten write with the hope that the similarities in the meanings with which all the refugee children of the Greek Civil War have themselves imbued their past experiences, irrespective of their national identity and political party affiliation, will help to heal the traumas of war and exile and to bring about reconciliation with the past. It is particularly encouraging to read this book at the present moment, when the Greek and Macedonian sides involved in the controversy concerning the memory of the evacuation of refugee children of the Greek Civil War lay claim with nationalist fervor to an absolute truth about suffering and victimhood and produce authoritative national narratives. The multiple voices presented in this book eloquently illustrate the complexity and ambiguity of the refugee experience, and can thus help undermine the potency of nationalist perspectives and resolve a long-lasting and seemingly intractable dispute. But let me begin at the beginning. In the first part of the book, Histories, Danforth and Van Boeschoten present the larger historical context in which the two Greek evacuation programs unfolded. In the wake of the Axis occupation of Greece in April 1941 and the immediate flight of the king of Greece, King George II, and his government into exile, the communist-sponsored resistance organization National Liberation Front (EAM) and its military wing, the Greek Popular Liberation Army (ELAS), enjoyed wide popular support among the Greek population. Although EAM consented to participate in a government of national unity and place ELAS forces under the command of British General Scobie in September 1944, polarization between the political leftand the anti-communist, royalist right continued to grow. In December 1944, fighting broke out in Athens between units of EAM/ELAS and the Greek police, rightist bands, and British troops, that lasted for six weeks. The persecution of the leftcontinued, especially after the right won the elections of 1946 and a national referendum sanctioned the return of King George II to the throne, and played a key role in the eruption of civil war. The Democratic Party of Greece, established by leaders of the Communist Party, kept to its stronghold in the mountainous regions of northern Greece. …

The article reveals modern approaches to the culture of collective memory addressing the cornerstone historical events which influenced the further course of history and national identity construction. The question of how to construct the collective memory about wars, genocide, mass suffering is one of the most important issues in the modern historiography, sociology and social psychology, political science, and related disciplines. The "politics of memory", which also includes such categories as "ethics and culture of memory," essentially determines the ability of the nation to overcome its collective trauma, to find ways for selfdevelopment and development of the country, and the further role and place of the nation in the system of international relations. This article discusses the current research studies on the culture of memory applied to the Holocaust, the present approaches to the definition and implementation of strategies of politics of memory, and memory models developed by modern scholars on the Holocaust remembrance. The Armenian Genocide of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire serves as object of the analysis. The subject of the analysis includes the approaches to the memory about the Armenian Genocide in the modern Armenian society, which is discussed here as the complex culture of memory on the Armenian Genocide, which is partly resulted of the official politics of memory implemented by Armenian authorities, as well as practiced by the Armenian Diaspora, and is partly a consequence of manifestations of national identity and collective memory at the level of society, social groups and individuals. The article is an attempt to identify the memory models in scientific research studies, in particular with regard to the memory of the Holocaust, and analyze their application / applicability to the culture and social practices of the memory of the Armenian Genocide.

The main idea of the article is to consider the interdependence between Politics of Memory (as a type of narrating the Past) and Stereotyping. In a time of information revolution; we are still constructing images of others on the basis of simplification, overestimation of association between features, and illusory correlations, instead of basing them on knowledge and personal contact. The Politics of Memory, national remembrance, and the historical consciousness play a significant role in these processes, because they transform historically based 'symbolic analogies' into 'illusory correlations' between national identity and the behavior of its members. To support his theoretical investigation, the article presents results of a draft experiment and two case studies: (a) a social construction of images of neighbors based on Polish narrations about the Past; and (b) various processes of stereotyping based on the Remembrance of the Holocaust. All these considerations lead to the understanding that the Politics of Memory should be recognized as an influential source of commonly shared stereotypes on other cultures and nations.

£24.50 and $40.00, £12.75 and $20.00 softback Paul Robert Magocsi Ukraine: A Historical Atlas 1986 University of Toronto Press Toronto 62

Memory production, vandalism, violence: Civil society and lessons from a short life of a monument to Stalin