Memory Politics and Transitional Justice

Memory Politics and Transitional Justice Series Editors Jasna Dragovic-Soso, Goldsmiths University of London, London, UK Jelena Subotic, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA Tsveta Petrova, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA The interdisciplinary fields of Memory Studies and Transitional Justice have largely developed in parallel to one another despite both focusing on efforts of societies to confront and (re—)appropriate their past. While scholars working on memory have come mostly from historical, literary, sociological, or anthropological traditions, transitional justice has attracted primarily scholarship from political science and the law. This series bridges this divide: it promotes work that combines a deep understanding of the contexts that have allowed for injustice to occur with an analysis of how legacies of such injustice in political and historical memory influence contemporary projects of redress, acknowledgment, or new cycles of denial. The titles in the series are of interest not only to academics and students but also practitioners in the related fields. The Memory Politics and Transitional Justice series promotes critical dialogue among different theoretical and methodological approaches and among scholarship on different regions. The editors welcome submissions from a variety of disciplines— including political science, history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies— that confront critical questions at the intersection of memory politics and transitional justice in national, comparative, and global perspective. This series is indexed in Scopus. Memory Politics and Transitional Justice Book Series (Palgrave) Co-editors: Jasna Dragovic-Soso (Goldsmiths, University of London), Jelena Subotic (Georgia State University), Tsveta Petrova (Columbia University) Editorial Board Paige Arthur, New York University Center on International Cooperation Alejandro Baer, University of Minnesota Orli Fridman, Singidunum University Belgrade Carol Gluck, Columbia University Katherine Hite, Vassar College Alexander Karn, Colgate University Jan Kubik, Rutgers University and School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London Bronwyn Leebaw, University of California, Riverside Jan-Werner Mueller, Princeton University Jeffrey Olick, University of Virginia Kathy Powers, University of New Mexico Joanna R. Quinn, Western University Jeremy Sarkin, University of South Africa Leslie Vinjamuri, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Sarah Wagner, George Washington University More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14807 Lucian Turcescu · Lavinia Stan Editors Churches, Memory and Justice in Post-Communism Editors Lucian Turcescu Lavinia Stan Department of Theology Department of Political Science Concordia University St Francis Xavier University Montréal, QC, Canada Antigonish, NS, Canada ISSN 2731-3840 ISSN 2731-3859 (electronic) Memory Politics and Transitional Justice ISBN 978-3-030-56062-1 ISBN 978-3-030-56063-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Alan Gignoux/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Introduction Transitional justice measures and memorypolitics in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union have been closely analyzed by scholars and policy practitioners since the collapse of communism in 1989/1991. This literature has documented the adoption of specific programs designed to offer truth, justice, and reconcilia- tion; the political negotiations that shaped, facilitated, or stalled reckoning programs; the electoral reasons that prompted some political actors to support (or oppose) specific transitional justice initiatives; the continued influence of former communist officials over the transitional justice agenda in some post-communist settings; the impact of the local legalculture on the adoption and implementation of such programs; the importance of timing and sequencing in enlarging or limiting transitional justice in a given country; the role of reckoning entrepreneurs, whistle-blowers and vigilante individuals in disclosing sensitive information to the general public; the input of international actors; as well as the lessons that some post-communist countries could teach others.1 Theoretically driven studies have linked transitional justice (or its absence) and various aspects of post-communist democratization, or identified the factors accounting for differences in scope and pace among national transitional justice programs.2 All these investigations give us an understanding of when account- ability and reckoning programs are legislated and implemented, by which state and/or international actors, as well as for what kind of reasons. v vi INTRODUCTION Less studied have been the input of non-state actors and the effects of transitional justice and memorypolitics on socialactors and civil society groups other than the political parties, politicians, and judges who formu- late, adopt, and implement reckoning-related laws and policies. The few studies published to date that have examined such actors (especially non-governmental organizations representing former victims, artists and members of theater companies, or scholarly associations involved in histo- riography and interested in gaining access to valuable state archives) remain unable to adequately map non-state initiatives in the region or explain how state-led reckoning efforts have impacted the larger society.3 To address this gap, the present volume investigates the way in which religious denominations have engaged in and been affected by transitional justice in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. The past that is considered here is the communist past. In some post-communist settings, religious denominations—and especially the majority Catholic, Lutheran or Orthodox Churches—have proven to be formidable social actors capable of unduly shaping public policy and public opinion, making or breaking the careers of various lumi- naries, decisively influencing the outcome of elections at various levels, and mobilizing their followers in support of their initiatives and in oppo- sition to other groups’ proposals. Even in countries where levels of reli- giosity are reportedly low, majority churches have drawn considerable legitimacy and influence both with the general public and with the political elites from their historical role in nation- and state-building.4 Regard- less of their social and political importance during post-communist times, majority and minority religious denominations present in the region have had to contend with the legacy of their actions under communist rule, which ranged from overt collaboration with the authorities and support for their religious policies to heroic resistance against self-avowed athe- istic regimes and willingness to protect dissidents and provide a space free of officialpropaganda for the faithful. The way in which denominations have pursued memorypolitics and transitional justice is the focus of this volume. To this end, this volume’s contributors were asked to focus on the country of their expertise while keeping a common set of questions in mind. The twelve chapters included here cover a broad selection of post- communist European countries where processes of church reckoning with the communist past have gained the attention of the general public after 1989. The book looks at seven Central and Eastern European countries INTRODUCTION vii (Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania) and five Former Soviet Union republics (Russia and Belarus, as well as Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). These are all countries not rocked by the prolonged post-communist conflict that would have damp- ened the appetite for rectifying communist wrongs (as was the case of the former Yugoslavia, Moldova, Georgia, or Armenia, for instance). As such, the countries included here have had close to three decades of post- communism to reassess and

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