Of Red Dragons And Evil Spirits: Post-communist Historiography Between Democratization And The New Politics Of History
by Oto Luthar /
2017 / English / PDF
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The collection of well-researched essays assesses the uses and
misuses of history 25 years after the collapse of Soviet hegemony
in Eastern Europe. As opposed to the revival of national histories
that seemed to be the prevailing historiographical approach of the
1990s, the last decade has seen a particular set of narratives
equating Nazism and Communism. This provides opportunities to
exonerate wartime collaboration, casting the nation as victim even
when its government was allied with Germany. While the Jewish
Holocaust is acknowledged, its meaning and significance are
obfuscated. In their comparative analysis the authors are also
interested in new practices of Europeanness . Therefore their
presentations of Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian,
Bosnian, Croatian and Slovenian post-communist memory politics move
beyond the common national myths in order to provide a new insight
into transnational interactions and exchanges in Europe in general.
The juxtaposition of these politics, the processes in other parts
of Europe, the modes of remembering shaped by displacement and the
transnational enable a close encounter with the divergences and
assess the potential of the formation of common, European memory
practices.
The collection of well-researched essays assesses the uses and
misuses of history 25 years after the collapse of Soviet hegemony
in Eastern Europe. As opposed to the revival of national histories
that seemed to be the prevailing historiographical approach of the
1990s, the last decade has seen a particular set of narratives
equating Nazism and Communism. This provides opportunities to
exonerate wartime collaboration, casting the nation as victim even
when its government was allied with Germany. While the Jewish
Holocaust is acknowledged, its meaning and significance are
obfuscated. In their comparative analysis the authors are also
interested in new practices of Europeanness . Therefore their
presentations of Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian,
Bosnian, Croatian and Slovenian post-communist memory politics move
beyond the common national myths in order to provide a new insight
into transnational interactions and exchanges in Europe in general.
The juxtaposition of these politics, the processes in other parts
of Europe, the modes of remembering shaped by displacement and the
transnational enable a close encounter with the divergences and
assess the potential of the formation of common, European memory
practices.
