Politics Of Memory Research Articles

Features of the "Monumental" Policy of the United States in Relation to the Conflicts of the Cold War (on the Example of Monuments in Washington, D.C.)

In this article, the authors analyze the unique features of the United States' "monumental" policy in relation to the conflicts of the Cold War and the associated memorial and commemorative spaces within the metropolitan region. Specifically, the authors focus on the two Cold War conflicts that are commemorated on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. — the Korean War (1950-1953) and the Vietnam War (19641975). The Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1982) and the Korean War Veterans Memorial (1995) are among the monumental objects that commemorate these conflicts, along with the Three Soldiers Monument (1984) and the Vietnam Women's Memorial (1993), which were later added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. To examine the evolution and specific characteristics of the American "monumental" policy regarding the history of the Cold War, the authors employed various sources, including artifacts of "monumental" policy such as monuments, memorial complexes, and architectural structures; official documents on monumental projects; official websites of memorials and their funds; materials on planning, construction, and preservation of memorials; memoirs and interviews of architects; articles in the media; opinion polls; reviews from visitors to monumental objects. By tracing the history of the creation of these monumental objects, the authors aim to evaluate the degree of influence of civil society on official memory politics and to understand how assessments of Cold War conflicts have evolved in the United States.

Competing Historical Narratives: Memory Politics, Identity, and Democracy in Germany and Poland

This article considers the growing rift between Western and Eastern Europe regarding the commemoration of Europe’s recent past and related historical narratives of nationhood that shape contemporary political preferences. More specifically, it investigates the connections between collective memory, national identities, and democratic cultures as they manifest themselves in Germany and Poland. With the help of an interpretative analysis focused on the discourse of political elites in both countries, the article identifies competing ways of interpreting 20th-century history and providing it with meaning for contemporary audiences. The national case studies of Germany and Poland present a contrasting logic in this respect: the promise of freedom and democracy in Poland is primarily narrated as the liberation from foreign rule and the desire for national independence. This narration is significantly built around a notion of popular sovereignty in which dissenting views of the heroic national past tend to be discredited and largely banned from public debate. In contrast, in Germany, the memory of fascism and the Holocaust has established a stronger rights-based approach to democracy in the liberal tradition and an openness to contesting historical narratives in the public domain.

Відображення трагедії Бабиного Яру у вітчизняній історіографії та опублікованих джерелах (1991-2022 рр.)

The purpose of the research is to highlight and analyze the source base, scientifi c works of domestic historians published during the period of independence of Ukraine (1991- 2022). The research methodology is based on the principles of scientifi city, objectivity, and his- toricism. Problem-chronological, search, analytical methods, as well as the method of generali- zation and systematization of the material are applied. The scientifi c novelty of the article lies in the analysis of the work of domestic researchers studying the history of Babi Yar. Conclusions. A brief historiographic review, which does not pretend to be an absolutely exhaustive selection of works, demonstrates the main directions of scientifi c research: local history (study of the history of the area and places of executions), archival (publication of German and Soviet archival docu- ments), oral history (analysis and publication of interviews), ego-documentary (publication of memoirs), statistical (counting victims), commemorative (commemoration of the Holocaust). All directions continue to develop, therefore it is too early to put an end to the research of the history of Babi Yar. The biggest «stumbling block» remains the statistical and commemorative areas, as there are still discussions among Ukrainian Holocaust and World War II researchers about the number of Jewish victims of Babi Yar, the politics of commemoration. The former «Babi Yar» tract remains a «battlefi eld» between supporters of the state and private concept of Holocaust memorialization. Among the prospects for further research, which have not yet found serious scientifi c implementation in the form of separately published books, it is possible to single out the analysis of the memories and testimonies of former representatives of the occupation structures about the shootings and burning of corpses in Babi Yar; materials of post-war trials in the case of Nazi criminals, especially those of them who were directly involved in destruction actions in occupied Kyiv.

Two Whitmans: Peripheral Monumentality in South Philadelphia

This article examines the contemporary politics of commemoration through analysis of the public life of two statues of Walt Whitman in South Philadelphia. Sited near a highway on-ramp and the entrance to a shopping plaza, the monuments to Whitman accompanied and celebrated significant urban spatial transformations in the mid- to late-twentieth century. At the same time, they commemorate battles over neighborhood identity and Whitman’s legacy. In recent years, local conflicts over Whitman’s legacy have been revived in activism to remove a statue of the poet in neighboring Camden, New Jersey. But, in South Philadelphia, debates about the future of public monuments have largely ignored both representations of Whitman. As I trace the lives of both statues, I argue that the quiet persistence of the two South PhiladelphiaWhitmans illustrates the complex political power of public artworks occupying awkward spatial and social positions.

The Realignment of Poqo as the PAC: A Remedial to South Africa’s Apartheid and Post-Apartheid Liberation Historiography

Post-apartheid South Africa’s liberation historiography has been constructed and curated in a manner that influences public and collective memory to assume that only one specific liberation movement (the African National Congress) was involved in the South African liberation struggle. The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and its military wing, the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA), have largely been given perfunctory attention or ignored because of bias and the selective politics of memory. In instances where the history of PAC or APLA is given some attention pre and post-apartheid, the focus has been mainly on uPoqo as the paramilitary wing of the PAC, or on the leadership conflicts within it, at the expense of interrogating other important aspects within the movement. This article explores the development of the term Poqo, mapping its roots from the shorthand for “Umbutho wama-Afrika Poqo.” It then shows that the prohibition of the PAC in 1960 after the Sharpeville massacre led the movement to operate under the auspices of Poqo, an underground name. Furthermore, this article demonstrates that Poqo was not a paramilitary wing of the PAC but is/was the PAC itself in another form. Ultimately, this historical and historiographical contribution seeks to achieve a re-alignment of Poqo in South Africa’s post-apartheid history writing and public memory.

Rediscovering Identity: Autobiographical Memory and Media Discourses of Russian-Germans in Germany and Russia

This paper compares the processes of rediscovering identity in autobiographical memory and media discourses of Russian-Germans living in Germany and in Russia. According to R. Brubaker, the Russian-Germans are viewed as a transnational group with a specific “hybrid identity”, whose identification varies depending on the cultural project, which they are involved in. In Germany and Russia, the boundaries of this identification are the politics of memory of the host society and the dominant narratives regarding this group as repatriates (Germany) and as a diaspora with its own culture (Russia). Our analysis, which was based on the methodology of the critical discourse analysis by S. Jäger, revealed that such a dominant narrative in Germany is the “narrative of return”. In Russia, however, there are two discursive threads: the image of Russian-Germans as a repressed group and the narrative about the outstanding role of Russian-Germans in the history of Russia. The curves of autobiographical and family narratives of the three generations of Russian-Germans in Russia and Germany were analyzed and compared according to the biographical method of F. Schütze. People aged 30–50 were the most open to the influence of collective “standardized” narratives both in Germany and in Russia. Despite the fact of living in Russia, those respondents who were preparing to repatriate to Germany actively reproduced the “return narrative” and used international mnemonic frameworks to structure their autobiographical and family story. Our study showed that the influence of the discursive media environment on the autobiographical and family memory of Russian-Germans living in Germany and Russia depends on the respondent’s individual life experience (the curve of their biography), age, and some peculiarities of their family history.

“It is a Gurdwara, Not a Memorial.”: The Politics and Aesthetics of Sikh Memorials for 1984

This paper looks at two memorials built in India to commemorate Sikh victims of the violent events of June 1984 and November 1984. Gurdwara Yaadgaar Shaheedan (Gurdwara Martyrs’ Memorial) was built in the Golden Temple complex, Amritsar in 2013, and the Wall of Truth: Sikh Genocide Memorial was inaugurated in Gurdwara Rakabganj, New Delhi in 2017. While both memorials commemorate related events and are built by the same group of people, they differ completely in the choice of nomenclature, design and even the justification given for their creation. This paper discusses the differences between these memorials and their relevance in the memorial politics of contemporary India.

In the Shadow of Shoah

Abstract This article discusses Stanisław Lem's early prose works, which were written shortly after the end of World War II. In light of the institutional state censorship of the time, the traumatic experience of the 1941 Lviv [then Lwów] pogrom and Lem's attempts at survival outside the Lviv ghetto, this article offers a broad historical, biographical, and political context for the interpretation of these early works, revealing political allusions and autobiographical motifs. This research takes the archival turn, which places the archive at the center of the study of power, memory, and politics. Careful study of Lem's biography reveals the violent interference of the directives of the oppressive state as well as its politics of memory, and allows the voice of the victims and the defeated to become audible.

Understanding Conservation Conflicts in Uganda: A Political Ecology of Memory Approach

Political ecologists have linked conservation conflicts in post-independence Africa to the continuities and legacies of colonial policies that displaced and dispossessed people to create ‘wild places’. This paper introduces a political ecology of vernacular memory to discuss the Basongora people’s vernacular memories of their historical dispossession to create the Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP) in Uganda. It explores how these events spurred multidirectional memories of resilience, heroism, victimhood, and resistance that the Basongora pastoralists deploy to reclaim social-political autonomy and agency. Using archival data and historical ethnography, I examine how the Basongora mobilise vernacular memory in contemporary contestations with the state and conservation authorities in QENP. Vernacular memory provides a moral authority that helps subordinated groups contest the hegemonic dominance of conservation authorities. A political ecology approach to vernacular memory reveals how people use memory politics to legitimise their claims in contested environments—an essential fact of contemporary conservation conflicts. This paper is the first to conceptualise how vernacular memories can legitimise the decolonisation of conservation narratives and community resistance against conservation.

ОТРАЖЕНИЕ ВЕЛИКОЙ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННОЙ ВОЙНЫ В РОССИЙСКИХ УЧЕБНИКАХ ИСТОРИИ В ФОКУСЕ ИСТОРИОГРАФИИ

This article discusses the current state of the study of history textbooks, presents a historiographic review of materials on the coverage of the Great Patriotic War in the history textbooks of Russia in 1992–2020. In the modern world, textbooks, teaching aids and school programs are the key instruments of the state politics of memory. The Great Patriotic War has become one of the central objects of the historical memory of Russian society and one of the pillars of Russian identity, and therefore is actively used in all of the above tools of education and politics of memory. Two main areas of study of textbooks are singled out - as educational and as ideological texts. The ideological views of researchers and their own attitude to the Great Patriotic War and World War II, memory and politics of memory about them are revealed, which can be attributed to “patriotic”, “liberal” and corresponding to Western academic discourse. The assessment by scientists of textbooks of different years is considered, it is established that Russian textbooks received mixed, mostly positive assessments. Evaluation of textbooks depends on the ideological views of the scientist. The obvious insufficiency of studying the new line of domestic textbooks (after 2016) is noted, as well as the methodological limitations of the approaches to the analysis of educational texts existing in the literature. Such a study should combine the methods of narrative analysis and discourse analysis, pay attention to the methods of constructing historical myths and direct falsifications.

1989: “Refolutions”, “Rebirths” and the Crisis of Utopias

"Having been seen, at first, as the foundation of a “rebirth”, both European and global, the “refolutions” of 1989 left a highly controversial legacy which is still subject of political memory clashes and a source of “cultural bipolarities”, but also of disillusionment and polarizations within multiple mnemonic communities. These contradictions, anchored in the ”traumatogenic changes” of the democratic transitions that engendered, at the end of the 90s, post-socialist nostalgia, are also related to a crisis of utopian thinking which characterized the moment 1989 itself and became a main feature of post–Cold War political-cultural paradigms, including the mnemonic ones, dominated by the traumatic legacy of the ”century of extremes”. Keywords: revolutions of 1989, political memory, social memory, utopia, post-socialist nostalgia "

Remembered in translation: Retranslators of William Saroyan into Turkish as guardians of erased memories

ABSTRACT This paper examines the Turkish translations of two selected short stories from William Saroyan’s My Name is Aram, paying special attention to the strategies used by translators in the transfer of details describing the daily lives of Armenian migrants in the US and their affective connections to their ancestral home. Through textual and paratextual analysis, and situating the translations in their socio-political contexts, the paper foregrounds the potential of (re)translated literature as a site for observing the changing politics of memory in a receiving culture. It concludes that, while earlier translators aligned themselves with the dominant politics of ‘silence and denial’, weakening the longings of Armenian characters for their ‘old country’, recent translators have been more meticulous about details related to the Armenian identity of characters. They reinstate the memories and yearnings erased in earlier translations, thereby contributing to newly emerging bottom-up energies challenging the official discourse and offering new channels of discussion.

THE HISTORY OF ISLAM IN THE POLITICS OF MEMORY IN INDONESIA (mid-2010s to early 2020s)

The purpose of the article is to analyze the features of the politics of memory in contexts of the history of Islam in modern Indonesia. It is assumed that the difficulties in localization of the history of Islam in modern historical memory are aggravated by repressions against Muslim activists and the violence of radical Muslims against their political and ideological opponents. The novelty of the study lies in the analysis of the attempts of the Indonesian society to form a compromise canon of historical memory, integrating the history of the Ummah and political Islam into officially sanctioned versions of history. The article analyzes 1) the features of the imagination of Islamic images in the politics of memory, 2) the prospects and contradictions of the integration of Ummah figures into the historical imagination, 3) attempts to revise the history of Islam in the context of the development of the memorial culture of the Indonesian society. The results of the study suggest that modern Indonesian society use the mechanisms of historical politics actively in its attempts to form a new image of the history of Islam, integrated into predominantly secular narratives that determine the development of Indonesian identity.

Mnemonic diplomacy in Russian-Serbian relations: The limits of the possible

The Balkan region has traditionally been of particular importance for Russia, and currently Serbia remains one of the few European countries potentially exposed, due to ideological affinity, to the influence of Russia’s soft power. Memory policy is an important tool in creating and maintaining this affinity because it enables formulation of unifying historical narratives and shared vision of the key events in the common history, thereby providing underpinning for assessments of current developments and for creating an image of the desired future. However, it has its limits and boundaries, and this paper aims at assessing the strength of the Russian-Serbian mnemonic union. The research builds on the concept of ‘mnemonic diplomacy’, which refers to a set of techniques and methods for the affirmation, coordination and dissemination of certain historical narratives designed to support the state’s foreign policy activities. The author argues that the Russian-Serbian memory alliance is based primarily on common assessments of the events of World War II. The paper examines the key stages, internal and external drivers of this mnemonic union development, as well as identifies contradictions and conflicts inherent to this process. The author emphasizes that within the framework of the Russian-Serbian memory alliance both parties have always pursued their own goals. For instance, Serbia sought to use it to increase its weight in the Balkan and, more broadly, European politics, as well as to strengthen relations with its traditional geopolitical ally. For Russia, this mnemonic alliance acquired particular significance when the country’s leaders set a course for transforming the post-Cold War world order. However, it was exactly this new turn of Russia’s foreign policy whose most visible manifestation was the launch of the special military operation in Ukraine that dramatically complicated Serbia’s position, including that in the field of memory politics. At the same time it has revealed the limits of the Russian-Serbian mnemonic union. The author concludes that the effectiveness of mnemonic diplomacy and, more broadly, the very possibility of forming and maintaining mnemonic alliances, ultimately depend on a combination of objective factors, including close economic ties and mutual geopolitical interest. Pushed outside this comfort zone, complementary historical narratives built solely on the appeal to the common heritage quickly lose their power of attraction.

Yerevan’s Cascade Memorial to Victims of Repression: Returning from Hilltop Marginalization

There is an extraordinary monument to the victims of Soviet-era repressions in a landmark location above Yerevan that hardly anyone in Armenia knows about. On June 14, a handful of activists gathered at this Cascade Memorial to pay their respects in a moving event. Fitting as that event was, it also had limited reach. Less than thirty people attended, illustrating how marginalized the history of Soviet repression remains in public engagement.An Ethics of Political Commemoration can help to reconceptualize this approach to commemoration. With the focus on the Cascade Memorial and the memorial day of June 14, Armenians, led and supported by memorial activist, could make this outstanding location come more alive, also by linking visits to the experience of being part of a larger chain of evoking the names of victims. Researchers, too, could contribute more insight and document their findings through Wikipedia. This effort could highlight the challenges of the authoritarian legacy in Armenia, and perhaps also contribute to a more civil tone as the country moves towards more democracy amidst geopolitical uncertainty.

Peter I Digital

The subject of the review is the monograph “Peter I in Media Memory” by Denis S. Artamonov and Sophia V. Tikhonova. Like their previous study on historical memory, the scientists rely on a variety of empirical material, including microformatted Internet content, cinema, animation, and video games. One of the central concepts of the book, mediatization, is explored through its application to the legendary historical figure of Peter the First. The analysis focuses on the well-known events and processes of Peter the First era that exist in historical memory and have entered the digital environment, as well as iconic mythologems.
 “Media memory” is not presented as an alternative source of knowledge about the past that exists alongside traditional forms of recording and broadcasting history. Instead, the authors argue that it functions as a resource for the formation of collective identities and the transformation of historical knowledge. The book delves into the mechanisms of contemporary discourses, providing insights into concepts such as the politics of memory, memorial war, media oblivion, and more. Despite its high theoretical level, the study is intended for a broad audience interested in digital culture.

Creating Cultural Heritage for a Better Future. The case of the “District of Mutual Respect” in the Polish city of Wrocław

ABSTRACT By applying the sociological concept of ‘emplacement’, this article analyses the creation of the ‘District of Mutual Respect’ in the old, neglected part of Wrocław (former German Breslau), a city which became Polish and lost its German population due to their forced migration after the Second World War. The District has in the last 20 years been transformed from slum to attractive environment and an important symbol of Wrocław’s new identity and image. The District showcases the local authorities’ new politics of cultural heritage and memory that emphasises intercultural dialogue and multiculturalism after decades of nationalist memory narratives and suppression of the German heritage. The authors outline a ‘biography’ of the District and analyse its functions. Furthermore, they apply Knudsen’s and Kølvraa’s concepts of repression, removal, reframing and re-emergence to evaluate to what extent that the District can be seen as a largely successful example of creating cultural heritage for a more cosmopolitan, inclusive future.

Overcoming the Past in German Scientific Discourse

Even now German society is painfully aware of its past. For German historians and cultural scientists, the problem of overcoming the past is an important topic for discussion. The purpose of this research article is to explore the genesis of the phenomenon of overcoming the past in post-war Germany. To investigate the phenomenon and the development of the concept, the article analyzes the approaches of German historians to the study of this problem from the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany to this day. The research is based on the principles of memory studies to reflect on the problem of guilt and collective responsibility of the Germans for the Nazi era. In 1949–1990 the German society acknowledged Nazi crimes and established memorials. Political disputes on the reassessment of national socialism attracted public attention and transformed memory politics in the country. The author also applies a comparative historical method to determine how this went in two German states, Germany and the GDR. The results of the study show that after the unification of Germany, the concept of overcoming the past has changed and the problem of overcoming the past has got a new dimension in German scientific discourse. As the study has shown, at present not only overcoming the period of National Socialism but also rethinking the SED regime is a significant problem of public historical consciousness and the culture of memory in Germany. This double problem is widely discussed in the media and is finding its way into the collective consciousness and identity of the German people. The article describes and analyzes the specificities of the process of transformation. Scientific discussion of the differences between the understanding of the concept of overcoming the past and its practical applications described in the paper is another finding of the study.

Rhythms of the past: the first anniversaries of the Great Patriotic War in Soviet memory politics (1945-1965)

The article describes the first anniversaries of the events of the Great Patriotic War (first of all, Victory Day) from the point of view of the Soviet policy of memory, which is interpreted by the authors as part of a symbolic policy representing the production and maintenance of certain social ideas about the past in order to achieve the stability of the ruling political regime. Special emphasis is placed on the comparative analysis of official programs of events related to the Victory Day in 1945-1965, the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War (1961), the first "round" anniversaries of the Battle of Moscow, the Stalingrad and Kursk battles, taking into account ideological, mobilization, status, geopolitical, organizational factors. Based on a significant number of archival and published sources, it is shown how, as we move away from military events for 10-20 years, the instrumental role of anniversaries of key events of the Great Patriotic War has increased, aimed at solving not only domestic political, but also foreign policy tasks. By the mid-1960s, such anniversaries were finally fixed in the memorial calendar and served to consolidate and mobilize Soviet society, contributed to the concentration of symbolic resources at the central and in some cases regional authorities (for example, the case of Stalingrad/Volgograd), and were also used to strengthen the positive image of the USSR abroad.

Islamic State of Indonesia in modern Indonesian memorial culture

The purpose of the article is to analyze the peculiarities of the perception of the Islamic State of Indonesia (1949–1962) in modern Indonesian memorial culture and historical collective memory. It is assumed that the ideological contradictions and methodological difficulties of localizing the history of Islam in the culture of memory of Indonesia are aggravated by the collective traumas of mutual violence and mistrust between secular nationalists and their Islamic opponents. The novelty of the study lies in the analysis of the attempts of the Indonesian society to form a compromise canon of the culture of historical memory as a space for dialogue and development of the images of the Islamic State, which was previously the object of negative mythologization, which led to its marginalization in the collective historical memory. The author analyses 1) the features of the imagination of the Islamic State in the politics of memory, 2) the prospects and contradictions of integrating the history of the Islamic State into the historical imagination of the memorial culture of Indonesia, 3) attempts to revise the history of the Islamic State in the context of the development of the memorial culture of modern Indonesian society. The results of the study suggest that Indonesian society is active in its attempts to use the mechanisms of historical politics to form a new image of the history of the Islamic State, seeking to build a compromise version of the memorial culture, which would include secular and religious versions of historical memory.