COMMUNICATIVE MEMORY, COLLECTIVE MEMORY, STALINISM, CENTRAL EUROPE, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, METHODOLOGY

• Authors: Michał Kierzkowski

Title variants

EN

DIVIDED MEMORY OF UNITED EUROPE. RECOLLECTIONS OF CZECHOSLOVAK WOMEN PRISONERS DURING STALINISM

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

In this article author concentrates on two issues. First part concerns a reflection on differences, generally speaking, between eastern and western approaches to the own past, between central points of collective memory in Eastern and Western Europe. Although the European Union becomes more and more capacious creation, constituting not only originally planned community of economic, business, one can hardly speaks of a common collective memory. The main problem is that for Western Europe, the central point of the collective memory is Holocaust, while in Eastern Europe memory mainly is directed toward the crimes of the communist reign. This asymmetry of memory, different approaches in relation to the past, is understood as a legacy of decades of Sovietization. However, it seems that these conditions have deeper roots, reaching deep into the socio-cultural sphere. Second is devoted to the characteristics of memory within post-communist countries in Central-Eastern Europe referring to a second half of the XX century. For this purpose, author analyzes oral history interviews with the Czechoslovak women — political prisoners under Stalinism conducted in 2008 as a part of larger project “Political Prisoners.eu”.

• Publisher: Oficyna Wydawnicza Epigram
• Journal: Sensus Historiae. Studia interdyscyplinarne
• Year: 2011
• Issue: 4(5)
• Pages: 97-116

Contributors

author

Michał Kierzkowski