Of Red Dragons and Evil Spirits : : Post-Communist Historiography between Democratization and the New Politics of History / / ed. by Oto Luthar.

• MitwirkendeR: Filandra, Šaćir,; Koleva, Daniela,; Kuljić, Todor,; Laczó, Ferenc,; Luthar, Oto,; Michela, Miroslav,; Radonić, Ljiljana,; Shafir, Michael,
• HerausgeberIn: Luthar, Oto,
• Place / Publishing House: Budapest ;, New York : : Central European University Press, , [2017]; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (256 p.)

The collection of well-researched essays assesses the uses and misuses of history 25 years after the collapse of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe. As opposed to the revival of national histories that seemed to be the prevailing historiographical approach of the 1990s, the last decade has seen a particular set of narratives equating Nazism and Communism. This provides opportunities to exonerate wartime collaboration, casting the nation as victim even when its government was allied with Germany. While the Jewish Holocaust is acknowledged, its meaning and significance are obfuscated. In their comparative analysis the authors are also interested in new practices of ‘Europeanness’. Therefore their presentations of Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian and Slovenian post-communist memory politics move beyond the common national myths in order to provide a new insight into transnational interactions and exchanges in Europe in general. The juxtaposition of these politics, the processes in other parts of Europe, the modes of remembering shaped by displacement and the transnational enable a close encounter with the divergences and assess the potential of the formation of common, European memory practices.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction. “Red Dragon and the Evil Spirits” -- 1. On the (In)convertibility of National Memory into European Legitimacy: The Bulgarian Case -- 2. Equalizing Jesus’s, Jewish, and Croat Suffering—Post-Socialist Politics of History in Croatia -- 3 Wars of Memory in Post-Communist Romania -- 4. Reflections on the Principles of the Critical Culture of Memory -- 5. The Struggle for Legitimacy: Constructing the National History of Slovakia After 1989 -- 6. Victims and Traditions: Narratives of Hungarian National History After the Age of Extremes -- 7. Instrumentalization of History in Bosnia and Herzegovina -- 8. Post-Socialist Historiography Between Democratization and New Exclusivist Politics of History -- Authors -- Bibliography -- Index