Postsocialism as a Crime

Abstract

Abstract The decade of the 1990s has become a significant topic of cultural memory in postsocialist countries, including the Czech Republic. One of the most pervasive interpretive frames of this period of recent history, present across various media, is that of “crime.” This article argues that such a framing is supported by the police, an institution with considerable power to shape shared notions about the recent past. The interpretation of the first postsocialist decade as criminal in nature is demonstrated through the example of the Czech true-crime tv series Devadesátky (The Nineties, 2022). The Nineties is analyzed using three key concepts. “Plurimedial networks” help explain how the series became a powerful medium of memory. “Police memorialization” is used to show how the memory of postsocialism is constructed through the motif of crime from the perspective of the police and what its political implications are. “Police culture” provides a source for a critical reflection on police memory, revealing vested interests behind particular narrative representations of reality-based past events such as those depicted in The Nineties.