On the way to visibility: the process of creating a cultural memory of the genocide of the Lithuanian Roma

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, we investigate the process of transformation of the Lithuanian Roma genocide in the cultural memory over more than twenty years since the restoration of independence. For many years, the Roma genocide has been ‘an invisible’ part of Lithuanian history, contributing to social, cultural, and historical marginalization of the Roma. We trace how the memory of the genocide is being gradually included into the public discourse, and how it is commemorated in the public spaces. We divide transformation of communicative memory into cultural memory into two periods: the ‘initial period’ (1998–2014); and the ‘period of intensification’ (2015–present) that could be characterized by the type and intensity of undertaken activities, visibility of the commemoration efforts, engagement and type of agents involved, and general socio-political context.