Memory in Post-communist Europe: Controversies over Identity, Conflicts, and Nostalgia

Abstract

This article is part of the special cluster titled Social practices of remembering and forgetting of the communist past in Central and Eastern Europe, guest edited by Malgorzata Glowacka-Grajper Controversies over social memory form an important aspect of reality in the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe. On the one hand, there are debates about coming to terms with the communist past and the Second World War that preceded it (because important parts of the memory of the war were “frozen” during the communist era), and, on the other hand, and intimately connected to that, are discussions about the constant influence of communism on the current situation. This article presents some of the main trends in research on collective memory in the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe and reveals similarities and differences in the process of memorialization of communism in the countries of the region. Although there are works devoted to a comparative analysis of memory usage and its various interpretations in the political sphere in the countries of Eastern Europe, there are still many issues concerning daily practices (economic, religious, and cultural) associated with varying interpretations of the war and the communist past which needs further elaboration and analysis.

Activism and human rights for people with mental disabilities in postcommunist Europe.

“…Due in part to such distinct national characters, the lifted thumb of communism brought renewed expressions of national awareness and with these renewed expressions, varying degrees of receptivity to the international push for market economies, democratic governance, and civil society development (Ekiert & Kubik, 2014). Many of the CEE countries experienced periods in which postcommunist state leaders strongly favored or opposed a march toward democracy and the ideological “return to Europe” (Głowacka-Grajper, 2018). As a result of this regional diversity, it is sometimes necessary to qualify any broad statement about the experience of mental disability in CEE, whether during communism or after, with occasional specifics about the differences among this medley of very distinct countries.…”