Description
Book SynopsisThe twentieth century has left behind a painful and complicated legacy of massive trauma, monstrous crimes, radical social engineering, or collective/individual guilt syndromes that were often the premises for and the specters haunting the process of democratization in the various societies that emerged out of these profoundly de-structuring contexts. The present manuscript is a state of the art reassessment and analysis of how the interplay between memory, history, and justice generates insight that is multifariously relevant for comprehending the present and future of democracy without becoming limited to a Europe-centric framework of understanding. The manuscript is structured on three complementary and interconnected trajectories: the public use of history, politics of memory, and transitional justice. Key words 1. Europe, Eastern—Politics and government—1989– 2. Collective memory—Europe,Eastern. 3. Memory—Political aspects—Europe, Eastern. 4. Democratization—Social aspects—Europe, Eastern. 5. Europe, Eastern—Historiography—Socialaspects. 6. Europe, Eastern—Historiography—Political aspects. 7. Social justice—Europe, Eastern. 8. Post-communism—Europe, Eastern. 9. Fascism—Socialaspects—Europe, Eastern. 10. Dictatorship—Social aspects—Europe, Eastern.
Table of ContentsPart One: Vladimir Tismaneanu and Bogdan C. Iacob, Introduction Timothy Snyder, European Mass Killing and European Commemoration Part Two : Politics of Memory and Constructing Democracy Daniel Chirot, Why World War II Memories Remain So Troubled in Europe and East Asia Eusebio Mujal-Leon & Eric Langenbacher, Post-Authoritarian Memories in Europe and Latin America Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory Revisited: The Nazi Past in West Germany and in Postwar Palestine Alexandru Gussi, On the Relationship Between Politics of Memory and the State's Rapport with the Communist Past Part Three : Histories and their Publics Vladimir Tismaneanu, Democracy, Memory, and Moral Justice David Brandenberger, Promotion of a Usable Past: Official Efforts to Rewrite Russo- Soviet History, 2000-2013 Jan-Werner Müller, Germany’s Two Processes of ‘Coming to Terms with the Past’ – Failures, After All? Part Four : Searching for Closure in Democratizing Societies Andrzej Paczkowski, Twenty Five Years ‘After’ – The Ambivalence of Settling Accounts with Communism. The Polish Case Raluca Grosescu & Raluca Ursachi, The Romanian Revolution in Court: What Narratives about 1989? Vladimir Petrović, Slobodan Milošević in the Hague. Failed Success of a Historical Trial Charles Villa-Vicencio The South Africa Transition: Then and Now Cristian Vasile, Scholarship and Public Memory: The Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania (PCACDR) Igor Casu, Moldova under the Soviet Communist Regime: History and Memory Part Five : Competing Narratives of Troubled Pasts John Connelly, Coming to Terms with Catholic-Jewish Relations in the Polish Catholic Church Leonidas Donskis, After Communism: Identity and Morality in the Baltic Countries Bogdan C. Iacob, The Romanian Communist Past and the Entrapment of Polemics Nikolai Vukov, Past Intransient / Transiting Past: Remembering the Victims and the Representation of Communist Past in Bulgaria
