Memory at War: Blog

(De)constructing a national memory – the presence of the past in post-independence Ukrainian literature.

2011-10-28T13:45:00.004+01:00

Також не пишу я про гуннів, про готів,Ані про манкуртів, ні про яничарів,Ані про Батурин, ані про Почаїв,Ні про Калнишевського, ні про Мазепу.Варю собі каву. Читаю газету.Ходжу до клозету. Ходжу до театру.I don’t write about Huns or Goths,Nor about Mankurts nor Janissaries,Nor about Baturyn nor Pochaiv,Nor about Kalnyshevskyi, nor Mazepa.I make myself coffee. I read the paper.I go to the loo. I

Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe Conference Report by Simon Lewis

2011-09-14T12:43:00.003+01:00

The “Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe” conference, which took place at King’s College, Cambridge on July 4th and 5th, gathered scholars from institutions in eight different countries, and was divided into seven panels. The last panel was followed by a round-table discussion involving all of the speakers and guests. The first session, entitled “Burying the Undead”, was started by Andrzej Nowak

Post-Soviet Digital Memories in the Fjords

2011-09-03T08:53:00.006+01:00

Memory at War's Bergen team looks back on an inspiring project conference. 'Post-socialist digital memories' were the topic of a 3-day Web Wars gathering in the Norwegian fjords of 22 European/Australian media experts, (literary & cultural) historians, linguists, sociologists, political scientists, and psychologists. In what proved to be a fruitful "experimental laboratory" (Vera Zvereva) of

Post-Soviet Monuments to Holocaust Victims, by Andriy Portnov

2011-07-07T13:52:00.004+01:00

On Three Monuments to Holocaust Victims: Reflections on Victory Day (9 May) Andriy Portnov There was no place for ethnically or religiously marked suffering or victims in the Soviet image of the Great Patriotic War. It is precisely for this reason that the phrase ‘peaceful Soviet citizens’ was used in referring to the millions of Jews who were murdered. The Soviet deportations on ethnic

Katyn Museum as Site of Divided Memory: Warsaw Seminar

2011-06-27T11:04:00.000+01:00

On 22 June the Social Memory Laboratory at the Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw, hosted a presentation by Piotr H. Kosicki (Department of History, Princeton University) A Divided Memory: A History of the Katyń Museum in Warsaw. The presentation was part of the Social Memory Laboratory’s regular ongoing seminar series. In his presentation Piotr H. Kosicki stressed that “in January

A Georgian Perspective on Memory Conflicts

2011-05-29T20:54:00.003+01:00

It's common to say that we have the most mobile monuments in Georgia. In fact, the statement is literally true: the government erects, removes, dismantles, blows up and relocates different statues and memorials quite frequently. Having been exposed during my first lecture as a student at the Faculty of History at Tbilisi State University to the positivist myth that "history is an exact science",

Memory at War Lunch

2011-05-05T13:16:00.003+01:00

On May 11, the Web Wars team hosts a project lunch at the University of Bergen. Team members Vera Zvereva (researcher), Maartje Gerretsen (filmmaker) and Ellen Rutten (project leader) will share project plans and first findings with local experts and project affiliates from both Slavonic and media studies. Scholars or practitioners with an interest in the field(s) who happen to be able to join in

Sites of Forgetting II, by Andriy Portnov

2011-04-05T19:57:00.001+01:00

Somewhat unexpectedly for me, my text about how a ‘Death Tower’ of a Nazi concentration camp for Soviet POWs was transformed into a five-star hotel in Lviv, published a week ago at the ‘History Lessons’ portal, in English translation on the 'Memory at War' collective blog, and in Ukrainian at Polit.ua, prompted a broad response. I received a great many letters and comments, and these have shaped

Historian Andriy Portnov on Sites of Forgetting in Lviv

2011-03-21T16:00:00.000Z

Andriy Portnov reflects on the forgotten war-time history of a five-star hotel in central Lviv which once housed a Nazi concentration camp for Soviet POWs. Image source: Wikipedia Sites of Forgetting In the 1850s the Austrian authorities in Lviv began building a fortified citadel designed to ensure control of the city in the event of an uprising or military actions. Two large and two small

Old Conflicts, New Media Conference in the Making

2011-03-01T12:55:00.012Z

Bergen's pendant of the Memory at War project, Web Wars, is now up and running. Currently, the WW members are busy finalizing the list of speakers for the first big WW event: the international conference Old Conflicts & New Media: Commemorating the Socialist Experience Online. Keynotes are 'Globital Memory' expert Anna Reading (London South Bank University) and Volodymyr Kulyk (Institute of

Ukraine's Monument War

2011-02-11T14:16:00.011Z

Ukraine began 2011 with a war of monuments. The most significant blow of the ‘conflict’ thus far was struck on 31st December, when a monument to Stalin in Zaporizhzhia was blown up. The monument was erected by the local Communist party on the territory of its headquarters in 2010. The bust was reportedly decapitated on 28 December, before its complete destruction on New Year

Karaganov: Russians Must Face Up to Soviet 'Suigenocide'

2011-02-07T16:09:00.001Z

Sergei Karaganov delivered an extraordinary programmatic speech on the Soviet past at a meeting with President Medvedev in Yekaterinburg on 1 February 2011. In the speech, Karaganov set out his vision for reconstituting the Russian identity through a re-evaluation of the Soviet past, in a series of striking images. He argued that Russian society could not regain its self-respect until it faced up

Russian Media Storm over Lenin Mausoleum

2011-01-21T18:12:00.003Z

Debates over what to do with Lenin's corpse were renewed this week in the lead-up to the anniversary of Lenin's death (on 21 January), after the launching of a United Russia campaign to bury Lenin and transform his mausoleum into a museum.The campaign was launched by popular historian and Gosduma United Russia deputy Vladimir Medinskii, who this week has variously called Lenin's 'presence as a

Memory at War postgraduate conference 11-12 March 2011

2010-12-08T15:39:00.003Z

The Memory at War project is holding a postgraduate conference on Memory Studies in Eastern Europe on 11-12 March 2011 at the University of Cambridge.The conference will be the first of a series of three to be held annually between the Universityof Cambridge, the University of Oxford, and the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London.In Western Europe and North America, Memory

Stalin ordered Katyn: Russian Duma

2010-11-26T21:08:00.009Z

According to news reports, this afternoon the Russian Duma officially acknowledged that Stalin ordered the execution of approximately 22,000 unarmed Poles at sites in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine in 1940, an event known as the Katyn massacre. The full draft text of the resolution ‘Concerning the Katyn Tragedy and Its Victims’ («О Катынской трагедии и ее жертвах») does not appear to be available

A weekend of memory in Belarus

2010-11-01T08:45:00.005Z

The run up to the Belarusian presidential elections, to be held on December 19th this year, has witnessed the intensification of the internal memory war in Belarus. The incumbent Alyaksandr Lukashenka, running for his fourth term in office after 16 years in power, has consistently promoted a vision of Belarusian nationhood which draws especially on Soviet mythology of the Great Patriotic War and

My Joy: a powerful cinematic exploration of post-Soviet traumatic memory

2010-10-27T15:09:00.011+01:00

Traumatic memory is central to the latest film by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, My Joy (Schast'e moe). The film tells the darkly picaresque story of a flour deliveryman who, on a journey through rural Russia, encounters petty corruption, theft and violence. While clues such as the uniforms of the militia indicate that the film is set in Russia, it could take place almost anywhere in the

Echoes of the East in the West

2010-10-15T10:12:00.015+01:00

p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }a:link { } The publication of eminent historian Timothy Snyder's new book Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin is surely a memory event of major implications, scholarly and politically, for today's eastern and western Europe alike. Shifting its focus away from the West-centric lens through which the history of World War II has traditionally been written,

Red Army monument in Poland vandalised in response to removal of Katyń cross

2010-10-11T12:49:00.005+01:00

The conflict over the removal of the Katyń cross from outside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw has found a new manifestation in the shape of a recently constructed monument to Red Army soldiers in Ossów near Warsaw. The monument has been vandalised twice since it was built earlier this year. The monument was an initiative of the Polish Council for the Memory of Combat and Martyrdom, and was

First Test Case for Russian Anti-Falsification Commission?

2010-09-22T16:36:00.001+01:00

Since early September, the Russian historical community has been thrown into turmoil by the latest ‘textbook war’, this time over A History of Russia 1917-2009, 3rd ed. (Moscow: Aspekt Press, 2010), authored by Moscow State University History Faculty staff Aleksandr Barsenkov and Aleksandr Vdovin. The debates on the book have unfolded in fascinating and sometimes bizarre ways, and have revived

Summer of Memories # 2: Poland - parallel battles

2010-09-07T13:16:00.003+01:00

The ongoing fight over whether to remove or keep the makeshift cross, erected outside Poland’s Presidential Palace in Warsaw to commemorate Lech Kaczynski, has been documented elsewhere in this blog (below). Its role in crystallizing discussions about contemporary Polish identity and, broadly defined, the politics of memory, are further highlighted by a comment piece in Gazeta Wyborcza, worth

Summer of Memories # 1: Ukraine, a pruning or an overhaul?

2010-09-07T13:15:00.001+01:00

The whiff of change – not necessarily to the good, for some democracy-watchers – has been in the air since Yanukovych’s election victory. Various events have sparked discussion this Summer, from the visit by Security Forces to the rector of L’viv University (followed by his open letter to academics internationally), to the changing of the guard at the Institute for National Memory in Ukraine.

Memory of August 1991 Coup in Russian Politics

2010-08-26T17:09:00.002+01:00

Commemorating the anniversary of the August 1991 failed hardliner coup was a key focus of an opposition demonstration in Moscow on 22 August. The rally was held at the site of the deaths of the White House defenders killed during the August days. Opposition figures Boris Nemtsov and Mikhail Shneider were detained after they raised the Russian state flag at the site. Issues surrounding the

Amended history textbooks for Ukraine's 11 year-olds

2010-08-26T15:46:00.013+01:00

According to Ukrains'ka pravda, Ukraine's controversial education minister Dmytro Tabachnyk has begun to 'rewrite' history for the country's 11 year-old pupils. Comparing the 2005 and 2010 editions of the fifth-form textbook Introduction to the History of Ukraine, journalist Katerya Kapliuk has noted a number of amendments and excisions in the new editions pertaining to, inter alia, the 1932-33

Belarusian NGOs Call for 'International Katyń Initiative'

2010-08-24T11:59:00.004+01:00

A delegation of Belarusian NGOs, visiting Katyń to mark the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism (23 August), has announced the creation of an 'International Katyń Initiative'.The Initiative's aims include launching a campaign to change the 'monumental landscape' and toponymy of Europe, in line with the 'Divided Europe Reunited' resolution passed by the OSCE

10th International Katyń Motorcycle Marathon to begin this weekend

2010-08-24T11:21:00.007+01:00

Bikers are gathering in anticipation of the start of the 10th International Katyń Motorcycle Marathon in Warsaw this Saturday.The marathon will cover 6000 km across Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. The aim is to 'honour the memory of Polish heroes killed in the East'. Sites to be visited include Katyń, Mednoe, Kurapaty forest, Kharkiv, and many others, including the site of the 10

Post-Smolensk Crash Tensions in Poland

2010-08-03T12:55:00.011+01:00

Tensions surrounding the aftermath of the Smolensk plane crash hit a peak today in Poland as crowds gathered to prevent the government from relocating a crucifix erected outside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw to commemorate the crash victims. The government appears to have backed down and agreed to let the cross stay (details available here), rather than moving it to a nearby church as

Kosachev offers another sign of shift in official Russian position on the Soviet past

2010-07-29T17:01:00.007+01:00

On 29 June 2010, an article by Konstantin Kosachev, Chair of the State Duma Committee for International Affairs, argued that the damage to Russia’s reputation was beginning to outweigh the advantages brought by defending the Soviet past on the international arena. In the article, Kosachev called for a new strategy to be devised to handle issues relating to Soviet history. He

Karaganov comments on Katyn and Stalinist past

2010-07-26T16:11:00.008+01:00

On 22 July the prominent Russian politics and foreign affairs analyst Sergei Karaganov published an article in the official Russian newspaper Rossiiskaia gazeta titled ‘The Russian Katyn’, in which he called upon Russia to ‘find within herself the strength to admit that the whole of Russia is one big Katyn, strewn with the mostly nameless graves of millions of the regime’s victims’. Karaganov

Should Russia apologise for Holodomor?

2010-06-23T12:35:00.008+01:00

'No,' says a (slim) majority of Russian respondents to a poll released yesterday by the Levada Centre. In response to the question 'In your view, should Russian leaders apologise to the Ukrainian people (Ukrainskomu narodu) for the "Holodomor" of the early 1930s, as they did recently to the Polish people for the tragedy of Katyn?', Russians replied:7% Definitely yes16% Probably yes28%

'Не умер Сталин'

2010-05-09T12:01:00.007+01:00

Но как тут быть, когда внутри нас Не умер Сталин? But how are we to live here, when inside usStalin is not dead?Boris Chichibabin, 1959The image above comes from Wednesday's match between Metallurh FC Zaporizhzhia and Chornomorets' FC Odesa. The sign, which reads 'Zaporizhzhia against Stalin,' is a response to the recent erection of a monument to Stalin by the Communist Party of Ukraine in

Stalin Monument Unveiled in Zaporizhzhia

2010-05-05T23:08:00.007+01:00

Well, they succeeded. Today the Communist Party of Ukraine unveiled a three-metre monument to a uniformed and decorated Iosif Stalin in Zaporizhzhia, the first erected since Ukraine's independence. Video of the ceremony -- and the attendant protest -- follows below.The weather was unusually hot in Zaporizhzhia today, and UNIAN is reporting that an elderly woman died during the unveiling

Putin in Katyn

2010-04-10T13:09:00.005+01:00

7 April 2010 marked a premiere – on the invitation of the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the Prime Ministers of Russia and Poland met in the Katyn forest to commemorate the more than 20,000 Polish officers shot there by Soviet forces in 1940. In his address, Putin stated “этим преступлениям не может быть никаких оправданий”. Putin’s words could be a milestone on the path towards a

Clash in Kyiv over 'Volyn Massacre' Exhibition

2010-04-09T10:02:00.007+01:00

Yesterday in Kyiv a group of Ukrainians protested an exhibition at Ukrainian House organised by a 'human rights group' called 'Russophone Ukraine' (Русскоязычная Украина, a project of Party of Regions MP Vadim Kolesnichenko) and the Polish 'Society for Honouring the Memory of the Victims of the Crimes of Ukrainian Nationalists.' Video of the confrontation is embedded above. The exhibition is

Communists Plan a Monument to Stalin in Zaporizhzhia

2010-03-28T03:23:00.002+01:00

The Communist Party of Ukraine is reportedly planning to erect a monument to Stalin in Zaporizhzhia in time to mark Victory Day on 9 May. Although local authorities officially refused to allot land for this purpose, the CPU is going ahead regardless -- with a private plot of land. According to the historian Viktor Gudz, it is estimated that over 30,000 died in the Zaporizhzhia oblast' alone

Battle over Bandera (Continued)

2010-03-11T13:24:00.003Z

Alexander Motyl has published an even-handed assessment of the Bandera controversy in today's Moscow Times. An excerpt:Bandera became especially popular as the noble ideals of the 2004 Orange Revolution were progressively tarnished by the heroes of that revolution, Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The more unpopular Yushchenko became, the more he promoted Bandera and the

The First Island of the Gulag Archipelago

2010-03-03T16:39:00.009Z