A European Memory?

A European Memory?
Author: Małgorzata Pakier
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2012
Genre: History
ISBN: 0857454307

An examination of the role of history and memory is vital in order to better understand why the grand design of a United Europe--with a common foreign policy and market yet enough diversity to allow for cultural and social differences--was overwhelmingly turned down by its citizens. The authors argue that this rejection of the European constitution was to a certain extent a challenge to the current historical grounding used for further integration and further demonstrates the lack of understanding by European bureaucrats of the historical complexity and divisiveness of Europe's past. A critical European history is therefore urgently needed to confront and re-imagine Europe, not as a harmonious continent but as the outcome of violent and bloody conflicts, both within Europe as well as with its Others. As the authors show, these dark shadows of Europe's past must be integrated, and the fact that memories of Europe are contested must be accepted if any new attempts at a United Europe are to be successful.

The Twentieth Century in European Memory

The Twentieth Century in European Memory
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2017-09-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 900435235X

The Twentieth Century in European Memory investigates contested and divisive memories of conflicts, world wars, dictatorship, genocide and mass killing. Focusing on the questions of transculturality and reception, the book looks at the ways in which such memories are being shared, debated and received by museum workers, artists, politicians and general audiences. Due to amplified mobility and communication as well as Europe’s changing institutional structure, such memories become increasingly transcultural, crossing cultural and political borders. This book brings together in-depth researched case studies of memory transmission and reception in different types of media, including films, literature, museums, political debate printed and digital media, as well as studies of personal and public reactions. Contributors are: Ismar Dedović, Astrid Erll, Rosanna Farbøl, Magdalena Góra, Gunnthorunn Gudmundsdottir, Anne Heimo, Sara Jones, Wulf Kansteiner, Slawomir Kapralski, Zoé de Kerangat, Zdzisław Mach, Natalija Majsova, Inge Melchior, Daisy Neijmann, Vjeran Pavlaković, Benedikt Perak, Tea Sindbæk Andersen, and Barbara Törnquist-Plewa.

European Memory in Populism

European Memory in Populism
Author: Chiara De Cesari
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2019-10-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429846835

European Memory in Populism explores the links between memory and populism in contemporary Europe. Focusing on circulating ideas of memory, especially European memory, in contemporary populist discourses, the book also analyses populist ideas in sites and practices of remembrance that usually tend to go unnoticed. More broadly, the theoretical heart of the book reflects upon the similarities, differences, and slippages between memory, populism, nationalism, and cultural racism and the ways in which social memory contributes to give substance to various ideas of what constitutes the ‘people’ in populist discourse and beyond. Bringing together a group of political scientists, anthropologists, and cultural and memory studies scholars, the book illuminates the relationship between memory and populism from different angles and in different contexts. The contributors to the volume discuss dominant notions of European heritage that circulate in the public sphere and in political discourse, and consider how the politics of fear relates to such notions of European heritage and identity across and beyond Europe and the European Union. Ultimately, this volume will shed light on how notions of a shared European heritage and memory can be used not only to include and connect Europeans, but also to exclude some of them. Investigating the ways in which nationalist populist forces mobilize the idea of a shared, homogeneous European civilization, European Memory in Populism will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of European studies, heritage and memory studies, migration studies, anthropology, political science and sociology. Chapters 1, 4, 6, and 10 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No-Derivatives 4.0 license.

History, Memory, and Trans-European Identity

History, Memory, and Trans-European Identity
Author: Aline Sierp
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2014-06-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317662040

This book questions the presupposition voiced by many historians and political scientists that political experiences in Europe continue to be interpreted in terms of national history, and that a European community of remembrance still does not exist. By tracing the evolution of specific memory cultures in two successor countries of the Fascist/Nazi regime (Italy and Germany) and the impact of structural changes upon them, the book investigates wider democratic processes, particularly concerning the conservation and transmission of values and the definition of identity on different levels. It argues that the creation of a transnational European memory culture does not necessarily imply the erasure of national and local forms of remembrance. It rather means the creation of a further supranational arena where diverging memories can find their expression and can be dealt with in a different way. Through the triangulation of agents of memory construction, constraints and opportunities and actual portrayals of the past, this volume explores the difficulties faced by a multinational entity like the EU in reaching some kind of consensus on such a sensitive subject as history.

Memory and Power in Post-War Europe

Memory and Power in Post-War Europe
Author: Jan-Werner Müller
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2002-08-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521000703

How has memory - collective and individual - influenced European politics after the Second World War and after 1989 in particular? How has the past been used in domestic struggles for power, and how have 'historical lessons' been applied in foreign policy? While there is now a burgeoning field of social and cultural memory studies, mostly focused on commemorations and monuments, this volume is the first to examine the connection between memory and politics directly. It investigates how memory is officially recast, personally reworked and often violently re-instilled after wars, and, above all, the ways memory shapes present power constellations. The chapters combine theoretical innovation in their approach to the study of memory with deeply historical, empirically based case studies of major European countries. The volume concludes with reflections on the ethics of memory, and the politics of truth, justice and forgetting after 1945 and 1989.

Memory and Change in Europe

Memory and Change in Europe
Author: Małgorzata Pakier
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2015-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 178238930X

In studies of a common European past, there is a significant lack of scholarship on the former Eastern Bloc countries. While understanding the importance of shifting the focus of European memory eastward, contributors to this volume avoid the trap of Eastern European exceptionalism, an assumption that this region’s experiences are too unique to render them comparable to the rest of Europe. They offer a reflection on memory from an Eastern European historical perspective, one that can be measured against, or applied to, historical experience in other parts of Europe. In this way, the authors situate studies on memory in Eastern Europe within the broader debate on European memory.

Memory and the Future of Europe

Memory and the Future of Europe
Author: Peter J. Verovsek
Publisher:
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2022-05-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781526163769

This book examines the role of collective memory in the origins and development of the European Union. It traces Europe's political, economic and financial crisis to the loss of these memories of the rupture of 1945. In order to survive the EU will have to prove that it can act effectively in the face of future challenges.

Whose Memory? Which Future?

Whose Memory? Which Future?
Author: Barbara Törnquist-Plewa
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2016-04-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 178533123X

Scholars have devoted considerable energy to understanding the history of ethnic cleansing in Europe, reconstructing specific events, state policies, and the lived experiences of victims. Yet much less attention has been given to how these incidents persist in collective memory today. This volume brings together interdisciplinary case studies conducted in Central and Eastern European cities, exploring how present-day inhabitants “remember” past instances of ethnic cleansing, and how they understand the cultural heritage of groups that vanished in their wake. Together these contributions offer insights into more universal questions of collective memory and the formation of national identity.

Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe

Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe
Author: Uilleam Blacker
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2013-09-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137322063

It is the aim of this volume to investigate how academic practices of Memory Studies are being applied, adapted, and transformed in the countries of East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union. It affords a new, startlingly different perspective for scholars of both Eastern European history and Memory Studies.