German Post-Socialist Memory Culture : : Epistemic Nostalgia / / Amieke Bouma.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Amsterdam University Press Complete eBook-Package 2019
• VerfasserIn: Bouma, Amieke,
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam : : Amsterdam University Press, , [2019]; ©2019
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Heritage and Memory Studies ; 8
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (304 p.)

After German unification, former officers of the GDR state security service united with GDR professors and cultural managers to establish the East German Committee of Associations (OKV). On the basis of encompassing oral history into this complex web of interest organizations and memory clubs, Bouma argues that these activists are driven by an epistemic nostalgia: a longing for the time when their political understanding of the world was seemingly unchallenged. Far from constituting a "second life of the Stasi", the main goal of OKV associations is to validate the personal biographies of their activists, against the now prevalent view that GDR was a "state of injustice". While OKV quickly adapted to the new legal procedures in post-socialist Germany, their staunch defence of the GDR heritage complicates their relation to the SED successor party Die Linke and other radical left parties and associations, even when they share practical goals.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Part I. Memory and Nostalgia -- Part II. The Ostdeutsches Kuratorium von Verbänden -- Part III. The Maintenance of Communal Continuity in Activism and Outreach -- Part IV. Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index