Cultures of History Forum (Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena)
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Why is it that one of the most visited museums in Prague, the Museum of Communism, is largely ignored by Czechs? Whose narrative is being presented here and who is being addressed? The article reviews the history and current permanent exhitition of this private museum and uses it to reflect on broader issues relating to the definition and functions of contemporary museums.
A new prime-time show on Czech public television entitled 'Devadesátky' (‘The Nineties’) has turned out to be vastly popular and triggered a lively public debate. In six episodes, the series reconstructs the most notorious cases of violent, organized crime during the first post-socialist decade in the Czech Republic. The article reflects on the TV series’ popularity and what it tells us about public memory and narratives of the turbulent post-1989 period in Czech society.
The Stench of Pigs and the Authority of Historians: Czech Debates About the Lety Concentration Camp
(2022)
For thirty years, Romani and other memory activists have struggled to get a pig farm that stood on the site of the former concentration camp for Czech Roma in Lety removed. This is now going to happen, and a new memorial museum will be set up on the site. The article reconstructs the debates that evolved around the site since the mid-1990s and sheds light on some of the misconceptions and controversies in Czech society about the Romani Holocaust.
Cinematic attempts to tell the story of historical mass violence and trauma in former Yugoslavia are often steeped in political controversy. The article discusses two recent films – ‘Dara of Jasenovac’ (Serbia, 2020) and ‘Quo vadis, Aida?’ (Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2020) – and the public reactions to them. While both films share certain features such as looking at historical horrors and inter-ethnic violence from a female perspective, they differ remarkably in style as well as in how they were received in Serbia and beyond.
In April 2021 a Czech researcher stumbled over a file card that identified Prime Minister Andrej Babis as a former agent of the StB. This new piece of evidence, however, was barely discussed in the Czech public. The article tries to explain this non-existing debate about the Prime Minister’s StB past and finds answers in the changing significance of anti-communism as a driving force of Czech public debate and memory politics.
Images of refugees being trapped at the eastern Polish border have evoked memories of another time: in 1939, Polish Jews fleeing from Nazi occupied Poland eastwards were denied entry to the Soviet Union and were stuck right at the same place as people today, along the river Bug. Reflecting on the historical analogies that have been drawn in this context in Polish public debate, the article discusses their validity and usefulness in understanding similarities and difference of both past and present refugee crises.
As part of the special issue on 'Lex CEU', the present article argues, that the antiliberal tendencies in Bulgarian politics and society and apparent recourses to nationalism are not really a new phenomenon. Instead, the developments in the country over the last decade and more rather point to a stable trend towards increasing illiberalism that is accelerated by rampant elite corruption and an ever decreasing media independence.
On 13 February 2020, citizens of the city of Dresden commemorated the 75th anniversary of their city's destruction by Allied bombing attacks in 1945. Subject to great contestation in politics and civil society, political protest and counter-protest also marked this year’s anniversary. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Dresden before, during and after 13 February 2020, the article reviews the public events and discusses the actors and narratives that shape Dresden’s most important remembrance day.
The situation in Ukraine is the subject of an intense discussion in the public sphere and the media across Europe. But what do we know about how our neighbouring countries are reflecting on the crisis, its historical background and its meaning for the relationship between our countries, Ukraine, Russia and the European Union? During 2014 and 2015 the Cultures of History Forum asked historians and sociologists from more than 15 European countries, the US, Israel and Turkey to reflect on the media coverage and public debates regarding the Ukrainian crisis in their countries.
For many decades Soviet and post-Soviet collective memory of the Second World War has been closely tied to the song 'Bukhenval'dskii nabat' (Alarm Bell of Buchenwald), performed at both official and private commemorations across the former Soviet Union. The article traces the origins of the song and critically discusses the various transformations it undertook from being an anti-nuclear peace song to becoming a central element of the antifascist 'Great Patriotic War'-memory.
Thirty years have passed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In Russia's public sphere today, the decade that followed is remembered with ambivalence while politically, negative narratives of the 'rowdy nineties' dominate. The article examines how the 1990s are being represented on social media platforms, in particular on TikTok and Instagram, and to what extent the platform-generated grassroot memory practices differ from, or even oppose the official narrative about this period.
The recent verdict against two Holocaust researchers in a Polish civil law court raised much concern about the increasing juridification of history in Poland. The Cultures of History Forum asked the legal scholar and civil rights lawyer Dr. Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias about the legal and political background of this lawsuit, as well as about antisemitism and the role of the judiciary in the Polish government's 'historical policy'.
What has been the role of historical symbols and images for both mobilizing anti-government protests in Belarus and coping with the state-inflicted violence against peaceful protesters? This is the main question guiding this exploration of the dynamics of memory-related images and symbols during the 2020 protests. It discusses the power of historical symbolism and its parallels in earlier revolutions in the region, yet also emphasises key differences in the Belarusian case.
As part of our continuous Focus on the memory of the Shoah in Central and Eastern Europe, the article discusses the 2018 Russian feature film ‘Sobibor’ and the story it tells about Sobibór and the Holocaust. Apart from revealing the completely ahistorical character of this movie, as well as a deeply antisemitic undercurrent in its presentation, the article also highlights the broader political context of this officially sanctioned production, raising questions about the current Russian history policy regarding the Holocaust.
The Nobel Prize for Literature in 2019 to Peter Handke sparked a harsh debate, both in Serbia and internationally due to the Austrian writer's controversial stances in defence of Slobodan Milošević and the crimes committed by Serbian forces during the 1990s. The article provides a critical review of the debate and the continued divisions in retrospective interpretations of the Yugoslav wars.
1945 – Defeat. Liberation. New Beginning. Twelve European Countries after the Second World War
(2015)
The article critiques a recently opened temporary exhibition about Europe’s post-war history at the German Historical Museum (DHM). While the exhibition treats all major themes of the war's end with political and historical correctness, it poses no guiding questions for visitors; neither does provide comparative perspectives. Therefore, it ultimately fails to rise above mere eclecticism. Overall the DHM fails in its attempt to grasp European history as a zone of interconnections rather than of parallel strands.
Official commemorations of the end of the Second World War in Estonia take place on May 8 and they focus on the victims of what is perceived as the most traumatic event in recent national history. A day later, another commemoration takes place that celebrates the war's end as victory and is attended by many Russian-speakers of Estonia. These two events epitomize the mnemonic landscape of Estonia characterized by two memory regimes that exist as parallel universes.
In May 1985, Yugoslav Slovenia celebrated Victory Day and the 40th anniversary of liberation. In May 2015, independent Slovenia celebrated the 70th anniversary of the war’s end as if it had been a kind of a natural process that ended, just like summer ends. What happened to the victory celebration? This article argues that the discursive differences between the two state celebrations reflect the deep crisis of official state/national ideology.
The recent past is frequently the subject of heightened public debates in Poland. Historians receive considerable media attention, their publications and statements draw comments from journalists and politicians. These disputes invariably revolve round three fundamental issues: Polish–Jewish relations, opinions about the Warsaw Uprising, and settling scores with communism. The article provides a critical review of the themes and arguments in each of these disputed areas.
A year ago, the documentary film 'Kolyma – Birthplace of Our Fear' was uploaded to YouTube. Made by the blogger Yury Dud, it has received over 20 million views today, despite the fact that it addresses one of the darkest chapters of recent history in Russia - the Gulag. The article analyses the film and its popular appeal, not least among young audiences. It identifies three key phenomena of present-day Russia that the documentary addresses: fear, ambivalent attitudes towards Stalin and an ahistorical form of patriotism.
In October 2019, a new memorial was opened in the former family house of Jan Palach in the small Czech town of Všetaty. With an impressive architecture and a small exhibition, the memorial commemorates the student who, in January 1969, set himself on fire to protest the communist regime. The article places its review of the memorial in the wider history of Palach commemoration in the Czech Republic.
From Crumbling Walls to the Fortress of Europe: Changing Commemoration of the ‘Pan-European Picnic’
(2020)
Official narratives about the legacy of 1989 and of Hungary’s role in bringing down the Berlin wall have changed significantly over time. The article zooms in on the public commemorations of one particular event, the 'pan-European picnic' at the Austro-Hungarian border, to show how Hungary’s elite is increasingly turning the original story of this event, a Europe without borders, into a story of Hungary as the sole protector of Europe’s borders and values against unwanted outsiders.
In December 2019 Anton Drobovych, a relatively unknown historian, was appointed as new head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance. His appointment came as a surprise to many observers of Ukraine’s historical and public history scene and could mean a shift in the post-Euromaidan politics of memory in Ukraine. The article assesses first statements by Drobovych and discusses them against the backdrop of past memory-related policies and legislation.
The Museum of Soviet Occupation in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, which opened in 2006, is a site of mnemonic contestation where the Soviet past is being displayed in a manner meant to reflect current disputes over politics and memory. This article discusses some of the discourses behind the museum’s current permanent exhibition linking it to Georgia’s geopolitical mission to become European, to mend relations with Russia and overcome internal political friction.
The 2016 announcement that Tallinn's Museum of Occupations would soon be re-launched under the name "Museum of Freedom" brought swift and vitriolic critique from a diverse array of citizens, heritage groups, and politicians. The article analyses some of the key themes of the controversy showing how it emerged from competing ideas about what role the master narrative of Estonian victimhood should play; it also highlights the ways in which the debate was shaped by Estonia’s social and geopolitical context.
The identity of Germany’s Ruhr area has been shaped by industrialisation, which transformed the former rural landscape and small towns into a centre of the industrial revolution on the continent. However, the history of civilization in the Ruhr stretches back to the early middle ages. All this is examined at the Ruhr Museum Essen, including the preconditions for and the serious consequences of industrialisation in in terms of the environment, as well as the long and largely unknown history of the Ruhr area before industrial times.
On 20 September 2019, a Bucharest Court confirmed that Romanian former president Traian Băsescu had been a “collaborator of the Securitate” during the communist era. The court verdict has refueled public debates about Romania’s incomplete lustration of former Securitate agents from democratic political life. The article discusses the recent verdict and its relevance for understanding Romania’s past transitional justice process.
A recent Instagramm project called 'eva-stories', in which a young girl (played by an actress) 'experiences' the Holocaust and documents it on her Insta account received much international attention, both positive and negative. Going beyond the existing critique, the article analyses the stories themselves, their uses of aesthetics as well as the accuracy of their historical representations of wartime Hungary. Based on this analysis, it discusses broader issues of Holocaust education in an age of digitalized communication.
Kurapaty, the site of Stalin-era mass executions on the outskirts of Minsk, has long been a much contested space where memories and narratives of the Soviet past clashed. Against the backdrop of a national government that blocks any more critical engagement with the Soviet history of mass crimes, the article explores the way in which Kurapaty has been the birth place of various oppositional groups and memory activists who pursue rather different mnemonic agendas.
Teaching about the Holocaust in Poland has become more difficult. Based on interactions with Polish teachers and on a review of the field of Holocaust education in Poland as it evolved over the past decades, the article discusses and comments on the current situation where teachers are faced with curriculum changes, public campaigns against a "pedagogy of shame" and multiple pressures to teach a more ‘patriotic’ history at school.
The ‘House of Fates’, the future Holocaust memorial museum in Budapest, stands empty. Efforts to realize this project have divided the Hungarian Jewish community and have been widely criticized as an attempt by the Orbán government to re-write the history of the Holocaust in Hungary. The article reconstructs the main trajectories of this highly politicized conflict by focusing on the key actors, their political maneuverings and motives in this ongoing power struggle over the representation of Hungary’s past.
After years of political wrangling and public controversy, the Latvian parliament decided in fall 2018 to fully disclose the names of several thousand former KGB agents and informers. Ever since, the country has been plunged into a renewed confrontation with its recent past, all the more so as many well-known figures from Latvian cultural life appeared to have worked with the KGB. The article provides the political and legal background to the current debate and assesses the ongoing media engagement with the topic.
Every year in May thousands of Croats gather in the small Austrian town of Bleiburg to commemorate the so called “Bleiburg tragedy” at the end of the Second World War. Considered by some as the 'biggest neo-Nazi meeting in Europe', this event has triggered considerable controversy, not least due to its political backing from among governing parties. The article provides the historical and memory political backdrop to these controversies shedding light on Croatia's struggle with historical revisionism.
Thirty years after the American mini-series “Holocaust” was first shown on West-German television and started what has come to be seen as a major turn in German memory culture regarding the Holocaust, the Cultures of History Forum has invited five historians, experts of contemporary history of Central Europe, who had never seen the series before to watch all four episode and discuss it. This is the protocol of the discussion.
The Sered' Holocaust Memorial Museum is the only one of its kind in Slovakia. Located on the original site of the former labour and concentration camp, it tells the story of persecution, exploitation and murder of Slovak Jews during the war. While recognizing the difficulties of presenting the history of the Holocaust in Slovakia, this review reveals many shortcomings in the current permanent exhibition, which misses the chance of truly informing its visitors and raising critical historical awareness.
How were processes of nation state-building and modernization reflected in early 20th century architecture? This and other questions guided a recent exhibition at the International Cultural Centre in Krákow. In tracing the 'language of architecture' across the region, the exhibit provided an interesting and original contribution to understanding the fundamental changes that marked the beginning of modern Europe.
A new generation of historians and curators have taken over the former Museum of Occupations in Tallinn, Estonia. They renamed the museum and opened a permanent exhibition built less on historical facts than on 'fragments of memory'. Technologically savvy, it challenges not only previous ways of representing Estonia's history of occupations, but also more traditional modes of presenting history in the museum. How this is done and whether it is convincing is discussed in this article.
Against the backdrop of rampant racism and xenophobia in both public life and the social media, the 'Racism'-exhibition in Dresden came at the right time. It gave interesting insights into how 'race' as a category was invented as well as into the Hygiene Museum's own history in promoting racialized thinking. The article provides a critical review of the exhibition and its uses of media, interventions and other didactic tools in presenting a most sensitive issue.
One year after the Polish parliament adopted an amendment that would criminalize certain statements about Polish involvement in the Holocaust, this article revisits both the original amendment and the political developments since. It argues that allthough the law was eventually changed to calm down concerns about freedom of speech, sanctions still exist and their longer-term effects on Polish society and public discourse are daunting.
The bloody events of December 1989 remain a most contentiously debated issue of Romania’s recent history. Both historians and prosecutors have tried to shed light on what exactly happened and who was responsible for the violence that occurred after the dictator, Nicolae Ceauşescu, had been captured. The article discusses the most recent indictment against former president Ion Iliescu against the backdrop of previous trials and Romania’s broader efforts to come to terms with the revolution of 1989.
A recently published personal story by American-Lithuanian writer Silvia Foti about her grandfather's involvement in the Holocaust in Lithuania has raised critical questions in the Lithuanain public about who has the right and authority to pronounce judgement on the nation’s history. The article reviews this debate and discusses how intimate and self-critical stories like Foti's fit within the official narrative and public celebration of the resistance nation in contemporary Lithuania.
The latest temporary exhibition by the Museum Polin in Warsaw entitled 'Estranged. March ’68 and its Aftermath' has been controversially discussed in the Polish public. The article gives a brief review of the exhibition to then analyse the subsequent debates as they provide an insight into contemporary Polish culture of remembrance and into the particularly sensitive issue of Poland's postwar Jewish-Polish relations.
What happens when the Church engages in public negotiations of history by hosting and funding a museum? “The Blessed Jerzy Popiełuszko Museum in Warsaw” poses this question as it is located in a church and presents the life of Jerzy Popiełuszko, a Catholic priest who fought against the communist regime and was murdered in 1984. Today he is perceived both as a national hero and a Catholic martyr. The article critically reviews the current exhibition and how it combines questions of history and religion.
When Local Memory Confronts State Historical Policy: Staging Edward Gierek’s Life in Sosnowiec
(2018)
Since 2015 when the Law and Justice (PiS) party returned to power, ‘history policy’ has become an important part of the political agenda in Poland. Its main targets are museums and public education more broadly. The article reviews a recent temporary exhibition about former Polish Communist Party leader Edward Gierek in the small town of Sosnowiec and places it in the wider discourses on de-communization and on regional-vs-centralized historical narratives of the recent past.
When in 2016 the decision was made to create an international Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in Kyiv, the plan received much support from government officials, including President Petro Poroshenko. Yet opposition emerged from both the Ukrainian Jewish community and nationally-minded Ukrainian historians and public institutions. The article provides the (memory) political context to the debates and critically assesses the arguments and underlying historical perceptions behind them.
The Estonian National Museum (ERM) is one of Europe’s youngest state museum buildings, and it has a (national) story to tell. The article analyses how through a deliberate use of space – from the historical significance of its site and its architectural design to the presentation of displays in the permanent exhibits – the museum projects an Estonian identity and serves the larger project of contemporary cultural production of the nation.
The complex history of Silesia with its shifting political, cultural and geographic boundaries and its current location spanning across three state borders, poses a challenge to anyone trying to define it. Associations of what constitutes ‘Silesian identity’ can vary considerably depending on the national context of the viewer. The article reviews three museums in Görlitz (Germany), Katowice (Poland) and Opava (Czech Republic) and evaluates how they present the region’s shared past to express Silesian identity.
When in February 2018 a new exhibition opened at the site of the former National Socialist 'Work Education Camp' Salaspils, its reception in the Latvian media was mixed. The history of the camp as well as its Soviet memorialisation are complex and have been frequently contested in Latvian society. The article reviews the new exhibition against this backdrop and asks how the curators present both the history and legacy of the place.
How are women who lived in and escaped from the GDR represented in two of the most popular tourist sites in Berlin: the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and the Tränenpalast? In comparing both exhibitions from a gender perspective, the article highlights different modes and key differences in how these two Wall museums address issues of gendered experiences, motivations and agency in stories of resistance and escape.
A new wave of de-communization has swept over Poland: streets and squares are re-named and monuments dismantled. In the cities and towns of northern and western Poland, that became Polish only after 1945, these measures are met with mixed feelings as they touch upon specific local memories of the post-war years. The article gives an insight into how local councils and citizens have struggled to comply with state history policy while also protect local historical identities.