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Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past: a Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region

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Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past: a Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region CBEES State of the Region Report 2020 Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past A Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region Published with support from the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies (Östersjstiftelsen) Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past A Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region December 2020 Publisher Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, CBEES, Sdertrn University © CBEES, Sdertrn University and the authors Editor Ninna Mrner Editorial Board Joakim Ekman, Florence Frhlig, David Gaunt, Tora Lane, Per Anders Rudling, Irina Sandomirskaja Layout Lena Fredriksson, Serpentin Media Proofreading Bridget Schaefer, Semantix Print Elanders Sverige AB ISBN 978-91-85139-12-5 4 Contents 7 Preface. A New Annual CBEES Publication, Ulla Manns and Joakim Ekman 9 Introduction. Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past, David Gaunt and Tora Lane 15 Background. Eastern and Central Europe as a Region of Memory. Some Common Traits, Barbara Trnquist-Plewa ESSAYS 23 Victimhood and Building Identities on Past Suffering, Florence Frhlig 29 Image, Afterimage, Counter-Image: Communist Visuality without Communism, Irina Sandomirskaja 37 The Toxic Memory Politics in the Post-Soviet Caucasus, Thomas de Waal 45 The Flag Revolution. Understanding the Political Symbols of Belarus, Andrej Kotljarchuk 55 Institutes of Trauma Re-production in a Borderland: Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania, Per Anders Rudling COUNTRY BY COUNTRY 69 Germany. The Multi-Level Governance of Memory as a Policy Field, Jenny Wstenberg 80 Lithuania. Fractured and Contested Memory Regimes, Violeta Davoliūtė 87 Belarus. The Politics of Memory in Belarus: Narratives and Institutions, Aliaksei Lastouski 94 Ukraine. Memory Nodes Loaded with Potential to Mobilize People, Yuliya Yurchuk 106 Czech Republic. Codeword “Criminal”: Moral Remem- brance in National Memory Politics, Muriel Blaive 115 Poland. History “Wars” and the Battle for Truth and National Memory, Joanna Beata Michlic 139 Hungary. Contemporary History Discourses after Thirty Years of Memory Policy, János M. Rainer 149 Romania. Justice, Truth, and Transitional Justice, Lavinia Stan 155 Bulgaria. A Chronicle of an Anachronism – The Struggle for Adequate Education about the Communist Past, Evelina Kelbecheva 167 Turkey. Commemoration or Complicity: The [Im]possibility of Memorializing the Victims in a State of Denial, Talin Suciyan SUMMARY 177 Remembrance as a Weapon for Political Manipulation, David Gaunt and Tora Lane 183 List of Authors 5 6 Preface A New Annual CBEES Publication he Centre for Baltic and East European region. Also, it demonstrates the great extent T Studies (CBEES) was founded at Sder- to which authoritarian and authoritarian-lean- trn University in 2005 to promote and develop ing governments actively intervene in how research and doctoral studies focusing on the crucial parts of their country’s history are to be Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe and, at written, taught, researched, remembered, and the same time, to strengthen multidisciplinary commemorated – or neglected and ignored. research at the University. CBEES organizes Moreover, the report documents the failure of conferences, workshops, public lectures and some governments to deal with restitution for advanced seminars, and hosts postdocs, guest past injustices, and the way some politicians researchers, and PhD students. Also, the centre forbid access to important state archives, hin- publishes Baltic Worlds, a quarterly scholarly der the teaching of the history of contemporary journal and news magazine which like CBEES events, or withdraw funding to or close down is funded by the Foundation for Baltic and East independent research institutions. European Studies (Östersjstiftelsen). This year, we are proud to present a new inna Mrner has edited the report, publication series: the CBEES State of the Nalongside CBEES-associated researchers Region Report. It is an annual publication, David Gaunt, Tora Lane, Per Anders Rudling, reporting and refecting on the social and Irina Sandomirskaja and Florence Frhlig. We political developments in the Baltic Sea Region are grateful for their hard work and hope that and Eastern Europe, each year taking a new the report will stimulate informed academic The CBEES and topical perspective. The report is written debate as well as public discussion on the state by researchers and area experts, from within of afairs in the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern State of the as well as outside of Sdertrn University. The Europe. ● Region Report overall purpose of this initiative is to ofer a 2020 reveals publication that will be of great interest to fel- Ulla Manns, disturbing low researchers, policy makers, stakeholders, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research, tendencies to and the general public. Sdertrn University The CBEES State of the Region Report 2020 control and reveals disturbing tendencies to control and Joakim Ekman, politicize the politicize the past in several countries of the Director of CBEES, Sdertrn University past. 7 8 Introduction Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past by David Gaunt and Tora Lane I told myself: That’s that. People don’t want to monuments, museums and historical truth commissions go to war museums anymore. They don’t want have been established throughout the region. Now there to hear about the siege of Leningrad, and that even exist guide books for tourists aiming to visit sites of goes for Stalin’s prison camps. It is tiresome. massacres and mass extinction.3 In many countries a gap And the personal memories of the whole family exists between the memorial policies of the government being captured and no one coming back, those and political elite in contrast with popular remembrance you must hide away and never tell anyone. of the past, neither of which need to be based on facts. Natalia Tolstaya1 An astute Polish sociologist, Sławomir Kapralski, writes of a split between political forms of commemoration his regional report initiates a planned series of and popular memory, that particularly afects Holocaust T reports on the social and political situation of discourse.4 Eastern Europe by scholars afliated with the Centre for Some major actors can be identifed: one, already Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) at Sdertrn mentioned, is the governments and political elites who University. This frst report focuses mainly on construc- desire to establish a worldview perspective showing the tions or reconstructions of national historical memory successful mastering of past events, the intention being and instrumentalizations of the past, which over recent to develop a triumphant continuity of events that can be decades has become a fercely debated topic throughout ofcially sanctioned through government agencies. A the region, and subject of much scholarly research. case in point would be the canonization of the Bulgar- The widespread phenomenon of government com- ian revolutionary Vasil Levski, a revolutionary of little memorative politics includes the creation of historical impact, as the prime martyr for Bulgarian freedom.5 commissions and institutions, legislating politicized Sometimes these national constructs clash as when a interpretations of historical events, establishing new mu- high-profle joint historical commission between North seums of national trauma, even getting into international Macedonia and Bulgaria foundered upon the impossi- conficts over interpretations of history, sponsoring bility of deciding whether Gotse Delchev, a revolutionary history textbooks for schools, erecting statues to national born in a border region, was a Bulgarian or Macedonian heroes, and instituting new days of national commem- hero, leading to diplomatic conficts spilling over into oration. Despite the authenticity of Natalya Tolstaya’s completely diferent issues. everyday-life observation of public disinterest in memo- rialization quoted above, and Yuliya Yurchuk’s2 fnding ther types of actors in creation of public memory that nearly all passers-by in Ukraine had no idea of just O are representatives of minorities, usually ethnic/ who was portrayed in historical monuments or why, new religious/gendered, desiring political recognition of or 9 Introduction compensation for past injustices or traumas, or de- scripts – Latin, Cyrillic or Ottoman – her guides emphat- manding a proper place in the national narrative about ically maintained that this proved that just their group the past. Take for instance the urge to universalize the settled here frst and thus had the best claim to build a Jewish Holocaust and a similar campaign among Roma national-state in the surrounding country. Even though activists for more general recognition of their World War other ethnicities lived there now, they were latecomers II genocide. and outsiders with no legitimate claim and needed to A large mass of writings can be categorized as “witness be removed.8 Each ethnicity in multicultural Yugoslavia literature” that, although sometimes fctional, has con- maintained their own exclusive view of the past and why siderable authenticity because of the sufering of the au- they lived where they lived, leading fnally to the break- thors, such as Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, Imre Kertesz, and down of Yugoslavia as a country. Hédi Fried. In recent decades large collections of witness We are thus dealing with an old phenomenon – the statements and video interviews have been deposited in re-interpretation of historical events for political rea- universities
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