War Memorial Research Articles

ДА МИЉКОВАЦ НЕ КОПНИ (ИНИЦИЈАТИВЕ ИЗ МИЉКОВЦА)

Concerned for the development and survival of their village, the citizens of the village Miljkovac many years ago submitted two initiatives to the City of Niš. The first initiative is to form an educational and scientific center for young people.The other one is to make a monument in the village dedicated to the warriors who died in the battles against the occupiers, and fought for freedom of their village and the whole country. Both initiatives are followed by detailed and thorough explanation. So far neither initiative has been implemented, but the applicants will continue to demands its implementation by the local authorities. Key words: Miljkovac, initiative, educational and scientific center, arrangement of the war memorial.

Women in Freedom Fights: state of research and methodological insights

The topic of the article is women in the Lithuanian guerrilla war. The authors review the development of the topic in Western historiography and the changing theoretical and methodological approaches, and then discuss the case of the Lithuanian guerilla war. Firstly, the image of female partisan war participants (participation in a broad sense, from combatants to assisting the resistance in different ways) is reviewed in a broad time perspective, from the period of partisan struggle to the Second Republic of Lithuania. Secondly, Lithuanian historiography is analyzed. The research reveals that, just like in the Western historiography, in the early period, while the partisan struggle was still ongoing, the first collective images appeared as uncritical, little reflected, idealized, and propagandized. Under the conditions of the Soviet regime, Lithuanian historiography did not develop, so after independence was restored, the same images – now supported by several of the earliest narrative sources (Juozas Lukša’s memoirs, Lionginas Baliukevičius’s diary) – crossed over into historiography, and are still widespread in the popular historical consciousness to this day. Propaganda about the Lithuanian guerilla war of the Soviet period did not offer any specific images of the female participants. In the last decade new multicentric efforts to approach the research of women in the Lithuanian armed resistance (in terms of theory and methodology), as well as in social history in general, are observed. Finally, the authors formulate possible guidelines for further research: to analyze the quantitative and qualitative data collected so far, to present a detailed statistical analysis of women in the partisan war; to study women within the context of social history, combining research on women’s participation in guerrilla warfare with the social development of the society; to study the history of war memory simultaneously with the research of guerilla war; to use the interview method more extensively, since examples in Western research have revealed that conventional written sources do not capture the specific experiences of women.

Moterys laisvės kovose: tyrimų būklė ir metodologinės įžvalgos

The topic of the article is women in the Lithuanian guerrilla war. The authors review the development of the topic in Western historiography and the changing theoretical and methodological approaches, and then discuss the case of the Lithuanian guerilla war. Firstly, the image of female partisan war participants (participation in a broad sense, from combatants to assisting the resistance in different ways) is reviewed in a broad time perspective, from the period of partisan struggle to the Second Republic of Lithuania. Secondly, Lithuanian historiography is analyzed. The research reveals that, just like in the Western historiography, in the early period, while the partisan struggle was still ongoing, the first collective images appeared as uncritical, little reflected, idealized, and propagandized. Under the conditions of the Soviet regime, Lithuanian historiography did not develop, so after independence was restored, the same images – now supported by several of the earliest narrative sources (Juozas Lukša’s memoirs, Lionginas Baliukevičius’s diary) – crossed over into historiography, and are still widespread in the popular historical consciousness to this day. Propaganda about the Lithuanian guerilla war of the Soviet period did not offer any specific images of the female participants. In the last decade new multicentric efforts to approach the research of women in the Lithuanian armed resistance (in terms of theory and methodology), as well as in social history in general, are observed. Finally, the authors formulate possible guidelines for further research: to analyze the quantitative and qualitative data collected so far, to present a detailed statistical analysis of women in the partisan war; to study women within the context of social history, combining research on women’s participation in guerrilla warfare with the social development of the society; to study the history of war memory simultaneously with the research of guerilla war; to use the interview method more extensively, since examples in Western research have revealed that conventional written sources do not capture the specific experiences of women.

Veterans, Families and the Domestic Geopolitics of Remembering War

ABSTRACT This paper makes a key contribution to emerging debates at the intersection of domestic geopolitics and critical military studies by focusing on how veterans and their families experience memory and the commemoration of war. Veterans of the Malvinas War in Santa Fe, Argentina, framed the ‘next generation’ – encompassing their daughters and sons – as central to sustaining memory of the 1982 war and interest in the contemporary geopolitics of the sovereignty dispute. It then presents the sometimes complex experiences and emotions of veterans’ family members in order to highlight the tensions bound up with remembering war, commemorative performances and the everyday geopolitics of the sovereignty dispute. The paper concludes by calling for a domestic geopolitics that engages the voices of veterans and other family members to enable sensitive analyses of the ways memory and the commemoration of war are lived, negotiated, (re)produced, evaded and even resisted through familial spaces and relations.

Alex Goldiș, Literature and Memory Wars. Representations of Communism in Contemporary Romanian Fiction

ABSTRACT The democratic environment in Romania after 1989 witnessed the emergence of an unprecedented number of public discourses engaged with the re-evaluation of communism. In line with recent contributions to cultural memory studies (Aleida Assmann, Astrid Erll), this essay tries to assess the role that fiction played in reshaping the communist past and engaging with the post-communist present. Narratives written by Dan Lungu, Radu Pavel Gheo and Vasile Ernu, some of the most representative writers of the Romanian post-1989 era, are examined against the backdrop of public debates regarding the opposition between democracy and totalitarianism, progression and nostalgia, the ʻcivilized Westʼ and the ʻprovincialʼ East. In reaction to the pressure of ideological discourses, this article argues that literature remains a privileged site where alternative versions of memory can intertwine and negotiate their claims. Literary texts that reshape cultural perceptions fulfil the ʻmnemonic multiperspectivityʼ function of the public discourse with particular focus on recovering the marginal voices that are often disregarded by classic historiography.

Immune checkpoint molecules B7-1 and B7-H1 as predictive markers of pre-eclampsia: A case-control study in a Ghana.

Immune tolerance in the fetal-maternal junction is maintained by a balance in the Th1/Th2 system. Th1-type immunity is associated with pro-inflammatory cytokines and immune checkpoint molecules (ICMs) such as B7-H1, while Th2-type immunity is characterized by anti-inflammatory cytokines and ICMs such as B7-1. Any imbalance in the Th1/Th2 immune system may lead to adverse pregnancy outcomes such as pre-eclampsia (PE). Hitherto, the potential of serum B7-1 and B7-H1 proteins as early markers of PE has not been explored in the Ghanaian population. This was a case-control study from May 2020 to April 2022 at the War Memorial and the Upper East Regional Hospitals. The study involved 291 women, including 180 (61.9%) with normotensive pregnancy and 111 (38.1%) with PE. Venous blood samples were collected and assayed for blood cell count, serum interleukins (ILs)-4, -6, -12, -18, and TNF-α as well as serum B7-1 and B7-H1 proteins. The monocyte count (p = .007), the serum levels of IL-18 (p = .035), TNF-α (p = .001), and B7-H1 (p = .006) were significantly higher in PE than in normotensive pregnancy. In addition, the monocyte count (p = .002), the serum levels of IL-12 (p = .029), TNF-α (p = .016), and B7-1 (p = .009) levels were significantly higher in the third trimester than the second trimester PE. In predicting PE, the area under the curve of cytokines and ICMs ranged from 0.51 for IL-6 to 0.62 for TNF-α. PE may be characterized by a dominant Th1-type immunity with higher levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines and B7-H1 proteins, but these variables may not be suitable for predicting PE.

War Memories, Monumental Activism, and Regional Identity in the Arctic Borderland

War Memories, Monumental Activism, and Regional Identity in the Arctic Borderland

Мемориализация Первой мировой войны: от коллекции к музею

During the First World War and just after it, the private military collections dedicated to the war have been appearing together with national museums in the participant countries. Some of these collections had a vast thematic and a broad variety of subjects, so they could be further reorganized into public museums, as the interest of the state institutions contributed to that. The process of their reorganization into the museum expositions is presented by some examples in Russia and in France. These examples are about the collectors who were not representing any military or state institution. So, the state interest to their activity means an exceptional value of their collections. The composition, particularities, history and value of these collections through the military historical museums as well as the significance of the museums for the remembrance of the First World War are analyzed.

Социальный портрет фронтовиков Первой мировой войны: информационные возможности

Introduction. Soviet historiography has traditionally seen the front-line soldiers as supporters of the Bolshevik Party, active participants in the establishment of Soviet power in the localities. This approach was convincingly supported by evidence from the memoirs of participants in the events. There are almost no special memories of the World War - participation in it was not a matter of pride; mainly about staying at the front was reported in connection with subsequent revolutionary events. Modern historiography considers front-line soldiers more variably, but essentially uses the same source base. Since millions have returned from the front, and thousands have left memoirs, the conclusions drawn from these sources are quite vulnerable, especially if researchers insist on their universality. Many judgments are about the unwillingness of soldiers to fight, the desire to get land at home, etc. - made not on the basis of source facts, but logical reasoning. Materials and methods. This article attempts to analyze the sources of personal origin of the frontline soldiers of one region - the Orenburg province. A complete collection of memoirs, autobiographies, etc., is reflected in the catalog published in 2021 and includes materials from the archives of the Orenburg region (state archives, museum archives) and archives of adjacent territories (Samara, Ufa, Chelyabinsk) - a total of 167 authors, as well as autobiographies from the personal files of the personnel department of the Orenburg Regional Committee of the CPSU - 240 texts. In total, these documents can be considered as a natural sample, which made it possible to create a social portrait of front-line soldiers in the southeast of the European part of the country with fixation of variants of certain aspects. The data obtained in some cases do not agree with the generally accepted judgments of the all-Russian scale. Results. The process of returning from the fronts dragged on until 1919. The thesis accepted in historiography that the peasant soldiers were in a hurry to get home in order to have time to receive land under the decree on land, does not find any support in the sources. The thesis about the mass revolutionary moods of the front-line soldiers and their readiness and desire to fight for the new government does not find support either. The vast majority of those who returned from the war sought to arrange a normal peaceful life. Those who could not find work immediately left for the Red Guard (and later the Red Army) as volunteers - service in the Red Guard was an alternative source of livelihood. Conclusion. A significant number of peasants got back to farming on land, and were drawn into the confrontation of the civil war only through the mobilization of 1919.

Память и политика. Кавказская война в мемориальном пространстве Чечни

The article is devoted to the analysis of the causes of the peripherality of memory of the Caucasian War in the memorial space of Chechnya (RF). The author presents a general picture of memory in this republic and wonders why it has such a form here and occupies such a place. The analysis of the available materials allowed us to conclude that the answer to the questions posed is the peculiarities of the existence of the republic as a subject of the Russian Federation and the complex history of interaction between the Chechen people and the Russian state. The work is based on several field studies by the author, during which more than sixty interviews were collected, including with memory actors in Chechnya, and field observations. An important source also was the analysis of the media, social networks and speeches of Chechen politicians. Published in accordance with the research plan of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The author declares no conflict of interests.

ДО МЕТОДОЛОГІЇ ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ ГОЛОДОМОРУ 1932–1933 рр.: РЕМІНІСЦЕНЦІЇ УКРАЇНЦІВ НА ЛЮДИНОНЕНАВИСНИЦЬКУ ІДЕОЛОГІЮ КРЕМЛЯ

The article summarizes the facts, events, and crimes of the communist totalitarian regime during the Holodomor of 1932–1933 and the putin’s regime during the Russian-Ukrainian war, which remind Ukrainians of the kremlin’s misanthropic ideology. For the first time made an attempt to adapt the psychological definition of «reminiscence» (delayed reproduction, in fact – the reproduction of information after some time, which emerges with images and analogies from the past) for the purpose of preliminary analysis of the memories of eyewitnesses of the Holodomor-genocide of 1932–1933 and eyewitnesses of the Russian-Ukrainian war 2014–2023 for further systematic analysis. The manifestation of human memory is the nation’s historical memory of its past, which is sublimated into everyone’s memory of their family, parents, childhood, and the brain will force us to work through the traumatic events of the Holodomor-genocide of 1932–1933 and the 2022–2023 genocide. And although the natural process of memory is forgetting, the process of reminiscence is capable of helping to recreate what seemed to have been forgotten, became a vague memory, an echo of a terrible event. Nowadays, when collecting and unifying memories of the Russian-Ukrainian war, which has been going 10 years, it is worth listening carefully to the stories of Ukrainians, because family memories of the Holodomor-genocide of 1932–1933 of the Ukrainian nation come up quite often, which are correlated with the terrible events of today. The Russian Federation continues to trace the methods of the communist totalitarian regime. However, Ukrainians managed to preserve and pass on to new generations the negative experience of the communist occupation. The rashists realized that Ukrainians managed to get rid of the totalitarian past. Putin’s regime and its accomplices are deliberately mass-deporting children from Ukraine for «re-education» to the Russian Federation, committing the crime of genocide. The main motivation of the struggle of the civilian population and the armed forces is the struggle against the hated occupation regime. It has been confirmed that for 32 years after the revival of Ukraine’s independence, Ukrainians managed to get rid of their totalitarian past. Ukrainians defend their state motivated. Therefore, the war is not only for territories, but also for democratic values, self-identity, philosophy of being and existence of Ukrainians.

The Civil War (1918-1922) in the historical politics of Russian political parties.

In the Soviet Union, the history of the Civil War was one of the important parts of the historical "myth", which ceased to exist shortly before the collapse of the country. Although three decades have passed since the collapse of the USSR, there has not been a unified attitude in society towards this conflict. The article presents a study of the collective memory of the Civil War in Russia based on the narratives of political parties. Modern parties, as part of the formation of their historical policy, offered their own vision of the events of the Civil War. The author of the article analyzes the attitude of parties to the parties to the conflict and personalities, highlights the key features of the image of the past formed by them. The main sources were official documents of the parties, election programs, speeches and publications of party leaders, books, materials of official websites. The results of the study are based on the use of general scientific methods and principles of scientific cognition, comparative analysis, and a systematic approach. The main conclusion of the study is the lack of a unified approach among modern political parties in assessing the events of the Civil War. Liberal and conservative-patriotic parties blamed the beginning of the conflict on the "Reds", the Communist Party – on the anti-Bolshevik camp, the rest expressed the opinion that all parties to the conflict were to blame. The parties also assessed the degree of foreign influence differently – communist and patriotic associations believe that the conflict has escalated into a large-scale war due to the intervention of the Entente countries. In modern political discussion, appeals to personalities are rare: parties resort to generalizations "Bolsheviks", "whites" and similar synonyms, the parties to the conflict in party narratives, as a rule, are faceless. From the personalities of the Civil War, they often turned to the figures of V. I. Lenin and A.V. Kolchak, evaluating them depending on their political preferences. The only conclusion common to all political parties was the unacceptability of a repeat of civil conflicts in Russia, in their opinion, the country should develop, avoiding such shocks.

“СЛІПІ СОНЯХИ” АЛЬБЕРТО МЕНДЕСА: ГОЛОСИ ПОРАЗКИ, ЩО ПЕРЕМАГАЮТЬ ЗАБУТТЯ

Background. The article is devoted to the problem of reconstruction of collective memory in Alberto Méndez's novel "The blind sunflowers" (2004). Méndez's book is a part of contemporary Spanish narratives that, since the 1990s, have witnessed the emergence of the so-called "memory boom", a trend in literature and cinema aimed at preserving, restoring and transmitting the memory of the tragic events of Spanish Civil War and Franco repression. The purpose of the research is to reveal the ways and mechanisms of reproduction and elaboration of traumatic collective memory in "The blind sunflowers" by Méndez. Methods. The study is based on the following methods: a historical-cultural approach and "memory studies", which made it possible to determine the place of the Alberto Mendez's novel in the context of the Spanish "literature of memory" beginning 21st century; the narratological and intertextual approaches were used to investigate various techniques of the author's creation of a polyphonic narrative in four stories that make up the book, and which represent different voices of the same past, functioning as symbols of restoring the memory of defeat. Results. The artistic recreation in "The Blind Sunflowers" of the traumatic experience of the events and consequences of the Civil War in Spain was investigated in dichotomies typical of the depicted historical moment: winners-losers, victim-executioner, death-life, memory-oblivion and voice-silence. The analysis of this traumatic context in the novel proved that writing (the voice of memory) functions as one of the main ways of preserving the experience of erased generations, restoring life after physical death, and as a guarantee of resistance to oblivion. Conclusion. The reconstruction of the memory of the Civil War in Spain and its consequences during the period of Francoism as one of the leading trends in modern Spanish literature demonstrates the still openness of collective trauma and, accordingly, the need to find ways to overcome it. In view of this, the approach proposed by Méndez in "The Blind Sunflowers" to restore and transmit memory through a collective discourse of defeat becomes a significant step towards healing the unhealed wounds of a society traumatized by war and a dictatorial regime, as it emphasizes not only the importance of the grieving process in overcoming tragedies, but also attests to the creation of literature as a space of memory, in which the past is reproduced as a voice that breaks the silence and overcomes oblivion, not allowing to turn the page and close the past.

Instant memories of the Russian war against Ukraine – mapping the virtual Meta History: Museum of War

Abstract This paper explores how Ukrainian virtual museums of war are embedded in today's connective environment of humans, codes and algorithms. In particular, I examine the ways virtuality as a mode of memory-making is deployed by the Meta History: Museum of War to shape the mediation and remembering of the full-scale Russian war against Ukraine as it unfolds. Using digital methods and digital ethnography, this study maps the emerging assemblage of the Meta History: Museum of War to grasp how the museum is contributing to efforts to repel the Russian invasion through its artistic and material engagement with the war. By exploring the network of exhibitions and the museum's virtual infrastructure, the study illustrates how the museum generates affective instant memories in order to wield influence over events that will in turn be exhibited in the future. Consequently, it adds valuable insights into the production of virtual engagement with war.

The First World War and Historical Memory in the UK

The First World War and Historical Memory in the UK

Образы средневековой "независимости" и "государственности" в современной каталоно-испанской мемориальной конфронтации

Introduction. The author in the presented article analyses the forms and features of the development of historical politics in modern Catalonia through the prism of the representation of medievalist concepts in the memorial culture of the regional society. The purpose of the study is to analyse medievalist rhetoric in modern wars of memory and those memorial cultures that arise and develop in Catalan society. Methods. Methodologically, the article is based on the principles of interdisciplinary historiography proposed for the analysis of memorial culture, which makes it possible to analyse medieval images as a form of historical policy aimed at instrumentalizing history. Results. The author analyses the role and place of regional intellectual communities and political elites as the main participants in historical politics, defined as forms of development of nationalism and the Catalan nationalist imagination. The novelty of the research lies in the study of the current (modern) stage in the development of the historical politics of the regional Catalan society through the prism of the actualization of medievalist rhetoric. The article shows that the intellectual community in modern Catalonia is a systemic segment of modern historical politics and the development of a nationalist version of memorial culture. The author believes that the range of memorial practices of regional intellectuals of Catalonia is limited primarily by their participation in strengthening civic identity through the prism of actualization and visualization in public and political discourse of the concepts of “statehood” and “independence” localized in the medievalist coordinate system through the active use of medieval images of the historical experience of Catalonia. Conclusions. The author concludes that medievalist rhetoric actually became a form of nationalization of history, promoting the integration of historical imagination and memorial culture into the discourse of Catalan political nationalism. It is assumed that the participation of regional intellectuals in memory wars actualizes the situation of politicization and ideologization of history, its instrumentalization within the framework of medievalist rhetoric, emphasizing the political, ideological and ethnic heterogeneity of society.

ПОЭТИКА ИСТОРИЧЕСКОЙ ПАМЯТИ В РОМАНАХ С.А. АЛЕКСИЕВИЧ "ПОСЛЕДНИЕ СВИДЕТЕЛИ" И "ВРЕМЯ СЕКОНД ХЭНД"

The article analyzes the functioning of memory in two novels by S.A. Alexievich, included in the cycle of books “Voices of Utopia” – “Last Witnesses” and “Secondhand Time”, which are based on the memories of witnesses of the Great Patriotic (Second World) War and the dissolution breakup of the USSR. The features of the poetics of memory in above novels are highlighted by analyzing the subjective organization of the text and the system of points of view, speech organization and figurative structure, as well as spatio-temporal organization, which allows talking about features of the poetics of historical memory in the novels by S.A. Alexievich and about features of the poetics of memory in a literary work as a whole. The influence of the novels on the remediation of the memory of the Great Patriotic War memory and the breakup of the USSR is considered

“BE NOT WISE IN YOUR OWN CONCEITS”: IS DECOLONIZING ACADEMIC HUMANITARIAN STUDIES POSSIBLE IN BELARUS? (a historian’s perspective)

This article reflects on the possibilities of decolonizing academic research in Belarus. The text is built on the discussions held during the conference The Decolonization of Education and Research in Belarus and Ukraine: Theoretical Challenges and Practical Tasks in Vilnius (September 2023), as well as the analysis of academic research and the author’s work experience of more than ten years in a state university. The author discusses the impact of initial and technical-procedural factors on the success of decolonization of Belarusian studies. The situation of the memory war, attacks on history, and the current Belarusian academic environment are referred to the former group of factors, while an ambivalent receptivity of Belarusian scholars and lecturers to new ideas, as well as the uncertainty about the the foundations for a new postcolonial discourse make up the latter group. The paper concludes that positive changes are possible subject to the success of the following processes: the staff of state universities and academic institutions overcomes their habit to uncritically follow orders from “above”, the lustration of personnel is carried out, a common language is found that facilitates dialogue with the public, and new research topics are explored (filling in the “knowledge gaps”). Otherwise, decolonial ideas could be quickly discredited and limited to a narrow intellectual sect while also preserving the foundations of the old system.

War and Veterans in Louise Erdrich's Novels

From the beginning of the Native American Renaissance, the subject matter of war tends to be significant to portray sufferings of emotional maladjustment among the Native American veterans who encountered the outside world through the war. Louise Erdrich is not an exception in dealing with the topics of war and veterans in her novels. Unlike some other writers, however, Erdrich does not give a hopeful ending to those veterans. The veterans are portrayed as victims and they cannot escape from the painful memories of war. The Native American veterans in particular, such as Cyprian, Billy Peace, Russell, and Henry Lamartine Jr., all have conspicuously fatal consequences arising from their participation in war, in one way or another, physically or emotionally. Each veteran has the fate of becoming an outcast or suffering a tragic death. Especially, the muted Henry Jr.’s drowning by committing suicide after his return from the Vietnam War manifests Erdrich’s powerful message about the brutal nature of war which also reminds the reader of the tragic history of Native Americans on the North American continent.

The Memory of the Great War in two books for children – Polish and English perspectives

Two books for children about the Great War will be discussed: Bohaterski miś [Heroic teddy bear] by Bronisława Ostrowska and Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders. It will be a comparative analysis. The books differ in terms of national perspective (Polish and English), but also in the time of edition – just after the war and a hundred years later. Thus, Ostrowska’s memory about the war is her own memory, whereas Saunders’ writing can be called a postmemory narrative. The aim of the paper is to answer the questions: what is similar and what is different in the two selected children’s novels about the Great War? What are the ways of transmitting memory? What do the writers want to save for new generations?