Reclaiming the Personal : : Oral History in Post-Socialist Europe / / Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, Gelinada Grinchenko.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press Pilot 2014-2015
• HerausgeberIn: Grinchenko, Gelinada,; Khanenko-Friesen, Natalia,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2017]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (344 p.)

The first twenty-five years of life in post-socialist Europe have seen vast political, economic, and cultural changes, as societies that lived under communist rule struggle with the traumas of the past and the challenges of the future. In this context, oral history has acquired a unique role in understanding the politics of memory and the practice of history.Drawing on research conducted in Belarus, Germany, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine, Reclaiming the Personal introduces theory and practice in this vital and distinctive area to a global audience. Focusing on issues such as repressed memories of the Second World War, the economic challenges of late socialism, and the experience of the early post-socialist transition, the essays underscore the political implications of oral history research in post-socialist Europe and highlight how oral history research in the region differs from that being conducted elsewhere.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction. Reclaiming the Personal: Oral History in Post-Socialist Europe -- 1. Political Changes and Personal Orientations: Germany and the European Remembrance Cultures -- 2. Empowering Files: Secret Police Records and Life Narratives of Former Political Prisoners of the Communist Era in Poland -- 3. Memory Silenced and Contested: Oral History of the Finnish Occupation of Soviet Karelia -- 4. Restoring the Meaning: "Biographic Work" in Ostarbeiters' Life Stories -- 5. "We Are Silent about Ourselves": Discussing Career and Daily Life with Female Academics in Russia and Belarus -- 6. A Commentator or a Character in a Story? The Problem of the Narrator in Oral History -- 7. Experience and Narrative: Anti-Communist Armed Underground in Poland, 1945-1957 -- 8. Forced Labour in Nazi Germany in the Interviews of Former Child Ostarbeiters -- 9 "Renew the Face of the Land, of This Land!" Catholic Culture and the Crises of Sacralization in People's Poland -- 10. In Search of History's Other Agents: Oral History of Decollectivization in Ukraine in the 1990s -- 11 "Where Has Everything Gone?" Remembering Perestroika in Belarusian Provinces -- Bibliography -- Contributors -- Index