Painful Pasts and Useful Memories. Remembering and Forgetting in Europe Bernsand, Niklas

Painful Pasts and Useful Memories. Remembering and Forgetting in Europe Bernsand, Niklas; Törnquist-Plewa, Barbara 2012 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Bernsand, N., & Törnquist-Plewa, B. (Eds.) (2012). Painful Pasts and Useful Memories. Remembering and Forgetting in Europe. (CFE Conference Papers Series; Vol. 5). 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LUND UNIVERSITY PO Box 117 221 00 Lund +46 46-222 00 00 Painful Pasts and Useful Memories Remembering and Forgetting in Europe and Forgetting Remembering Memories and Useful Pasts Painful CFE Conference Papers Series No. 5 | Lund 2012 Painful Pasts and useful MeMories Painful Pasts and useful MeMories reMeMbering and forgetting in euroPe reMeMbering and forgetting in euroPe In order to bring research in Memory Studies conducted in the Nordic countries together, to connect existing knowledge and to promote cooperation, a group of scholars from the universities of Lund, Karlstad, Stavanger, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Tartu in 2009 initiated the Nordic Network in Memory Studies. That year the network was awarded financial support from NordForsk for three years, and a network project was launched with the title ’Towards a Common Past? Conflicting Memories and Competitive Historical Narratives in Europe after 1989.’ The network presently includes about 45 researchers (both senior and PhD candidates). This book includes a selection of papers given by members of the NordForsk network during two workshop meetings in 2009 and 2010. Its aim is to demonstrate the variety of subjects and empirical cases that our network members deal with, as well as the range of disciplines they represent. The contributions to the volume are united by the authors’ keen research interest in the functions and dynamics of cultural memory. Lund 2012 Lund Edited by: Barbara Törnquist-Plewa & LUND UNIVERSITY Niklas Bernsand ISSN 1654-2185 CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN STUDIES AT LUND UNIVERSITY CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN STUDIES PRINT BY MEDIA-TRYCK, LUND 2012 AT LUND UNIVERSITY Painful Pasts and useful MeMories reMeMbering and forgetting in euroPe Painful Pasts and useful MeMories reMeMbering and forgetting in euroPe Edited by: Barbara Törnquist-Plewa & Niklas Bernsand CFE Conference Papers Series No. 5 Lund 2012 The CFE Conference papers series is published by The Centre for European Studies (CFE) at Lund University: © 2012 The Centre for European Studies at Lund University and the authors Editors: Barbara Törnquist-Plewa and Niklas Bernsand ISSN: 1654-2185 The paper is also available in pdf-format at CFE’s website www.cfe.lu.se CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN STUDIES AT LUND UNIVERSITY Box 201 Phone +46 (0)46-222 88 19 SE-221 00 LUND Fax: +46 (0)46-222 32 11 SWEDEN E-mail: [email protected] Contents Introduction 7 Barbara Törnquist-Plewa & Niklas Bernsand The Use and Non-Use of the Holocaust Memory in Poland 11 Barbara Törnquist-Plewa “Huta is the air that I breathe” Belonging, Remembering and Fighting in the Story of Maciej Twaróg 29 Agnes Malmgren Collective Memories and “Blank Spots” of the Ukrainian Past as Addressed by the Lviv Intellectuals 51 Eleonora Narvselius The Nexus Between Cultural Trauma, Collective Memory and Social Trust: A Glass Half-Full, Half-Empty or Shattered. The Case of post-1991 Ukraine 73 Yuliya Yurchuk Relearning to Remember: Romania’s Cultural Legacy and European Aspirations 91 Adrian Velicu Emotional Silences: the Rituals of Remembering the Finnish Karelia 109 Kristiina Korjonen-Kuusipuro & Anna-Kaisa Kuusisto-Arponen After “The Bloody Cloth of Krajina” The Yugoslav communists and the construction of a usable past out of the history of the inter-Yugoslav massacres of the Second World War 127 Tea Sindbæk Looking at the Past with Jorge Semprún Literature or Life (1995): An Aesthetic Reflection on the Use of Memories 147 Alexandre Dessingué Memory of a Tragedy and the Beginnings of Roma Literature in Czech and Slovak Culture 161 Miloslava Slavíčková Political Frames of Welfare History 179 Ketil Knutsen Preserving the past and intervening in the future through memorials and gravestones 193 Marie Smith-Solbakken and Hans-Jørgen Wallin Weihe Introduction Barbara Törnquist-Plewa & Niklas Bernsand Knowledge about the past and knowledge about how the past is interpreted, transmitted and used are of tremendous importance for the community. Researchers within the humanities and social sciences have always in one way or another dealt with these issues; yet the last two decades have seen a dramatically increased interest in them. Scholars speak of the memory turn within the humanities and social sciences, and a new multi- disciplinary area of research called Memory Studies has been established. Its clearest manifestation was the creation in 2008 of the international interdisciplinary review Memory Studies. It is widely recognized that social memory (or collective/cultural memory), understood as emotionally loaded and durable representations of the past, is widely used by and within social groups and plays an important role for their identities, expectations and actions. Issues of memory are nowadays on the political and cultural agendas of most countries. The United Kingdom and France work through their colo- nial past; Spain tries to come to terms with the legacy of the Franco regime; Eastern European countries struggle with the legacy of Communism and ethnic cleansings of the twentieth century; Germany is dealing with both its Nazi and Communist past; and the Scandinavian countries, too, are reassessing and debating their history. A couple of examples among many are the Swedish debate on forced sterilization and racial research, and Norwegian and Finnish historians’ debates on their countries’ perception of their own roles in the Second World War. It is no coincidence that the interest in issues of memory and use of history gathered momentum following the events of 1989, the end of the Cold War and the accelerated European integration process. These upheavals led to the need to question old collective (first and foremost, national) identities based on well-established ’narratives’ about the past. New ’narratives’, involving a rewriting of history, have emerged, dealing with events previously forgotten, hushed up or marginalized. The Holocaust has, for example, become a kind of founding memory in Europe, followed by interest in the memories of other ethnic cleansings and mass killings. The liberated narratives and memories have in many cases led to conflicts both within nations and between peoples and states (e.g. the conflict concerning the bronze soldier in Tallinn in 2007). At the same time, EU political and intellectual elites repeatedly attempt to create a common European identity; one based inter alia on shared history, shared collective memories, and a kind of unitary memory ethics stipulating what should be remembered, and in 7 which way. How do such ambitions relate to the innumerable ongoing memory conflicts in Europe? Are there any means of negotiating between these memories, between the various national identity projects and the European project? Intensified research is needed in order to answer these questions and others connected to them. On the basis of studies of concrete empirical cases, we need to investigate matters such as what kind of historical narratives are produced and how. How are memories of the past used, and how do they, in turn, affect people’s existence and their co-existence with others? Thus we also need to treat ethical and normative issues connected with memory issues. How is memory to be shaped in order to promote reconciliation and coming closer to the Other/s? How are traumatic memories to be handled? These questions lie at the very heart of the research area called Memory Studies, but there are other important questions to be studied; for example, the actual dynamics of memory, memory mediation and the role of agency in this mediation, memory transmission across cultural borders, etc. The complexity of the field leads to the multi- and interdisciplinary character of research into memory politics and memory culture. It involves such disciplines as history, sociology, political science, psychology, cultural geography, anthropology, philosophy, educational sciences, urban planning (heritage maintenance), as well as aesthetic subjects such as literary studies, film studies and art history. This truly interdisciplinary research area is now firmly established in Germany, France and Britain, but is also growing

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