History, Memory and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe

GEORGES MINK is Senior Researcher, French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, France. LAURE NEUMAYER is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Unversite Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, France.

• Introduction; G.Mink & L.Neumayer PART I: MOBILIZATIONS AROUND MEMORY: NEW ACTORS, NEW ISSUES Would-Be Guardians Of Memory. An Association Of Camp Inmates Of The 1992-1995 Bosnian War Under Ethnographic Scrutiny; C.Jouhanneau The Russian Orthodox Church And Reconciliation With The Soviet Past; K.Rousselet 'You Still Live Far From The Motherland, But You Are Her Son, Her Daughter'. War Memory And Soviet Mental Space (1945-2011); M.Venken Pilgrimages To The Edge Of The Fallen Empire - An Anthropological Study Of Finnish And Hungarian Pilgrimages To World War II Memorials In Post-Soviet Russia; E.Fisli & J.Parot Memory At The Margins: The Shoah In Ukraine (1991-2011); S.Fainberg PART II: MEMORY POLICIES AND HISTORICAL NARRATIVES: HOW DO STATES DEAL WITH MEMORIES OF THE PAST? Elites' Games In The Field Of Memory: Insights From Lithuania; I.Matonyte The Chernobyl Nuclear Accident And Identity Strategies In Belarus; T.Kasperski Dealing With The Past In Central And Southern European Democracies: Comparing Spain And Poland; F.Raimundo Institutions Of National Memory In Post-Communist Europe: From Transitional Justice To Political Uses Of Biographies (1989-2010); G.Mink PART III: INTERNATIONAL NORMS AND 'GEOPOLITICS OF MEMORY' Memory Wars And Reconciliation In The Ukrainian-Polish Borderlands: Geopolitics Of Memory From A Local Perspective; T.Zhurzhenko Memory Of The Soviet Union And European Norms On Diversity As Rival Frames For Ethnic Boundary Making: A Case Study In Latvia's Russian-Speaking Schools; P.Bonnard Creating European Norms Of Reconciliation: The Involvement Of The Council Of Europe And The OSCE In The Controversy On The Hungarian 'Status Law'; L.Neumayer The Rejection Of International Criminal Law In West Germany After WWII; G.Mouralis History As A Tool For Foreign Policy In The Baltic States After Independence; P.Perchoc Conclusion; G.Mink & L.Neumayer

A fascinating book! This is a must read for anyone interested in the issue of coming to terms with difficult collective past by European societies'.Jan T. Gross, Professor of History, Princeton University, USA'History of Central and Eastern Europe was boisterous. No wonder that it is present not only in memory but also in everyday life of many Central and Eastern Europeans. The volume gives an impressive insight into the complicated past of this region while, at the same time, convincingly showing how historical memory shapes our life to-day. Each student of European affairs will greatly benefit from this volume'.Edmund Wnuk-Lipi?ski, Professor of Sociology, Collegium Civitas, Warsaw, Poland'This brilliant and thoughtful book demonstrates that any process of Europeanization of histories and memories has to abandon the cliché that the Eastern and Central Europe situation was mainly influenced by the Western and Holocaust oriented 'memory boom'. On the contrary, the case studies presented here show to what extent memorialization in former Communist countries has followed its own path since the 1990s, and how it will probably change our perception of European history and politics since 1945'.Henry Rousso, Senior Researcher, Institut d'histoire du temps présent, CNRS, Paris, France