Memory in Post-communist Europe: Controversies over Identity,Conflicts,and Nostalgia

Searching for the Origins of National Identities

Post-communism is a period in which individual countries and regions search for their own collective identity and place in a globalizing world. In public discourse, in the countries of Eastern Europe as well as in the West, the formula of a political, economic, social, cultural (and therefore symbolic) “return to Europe” is often used. ⁴ It is closely linked to the first group of controversies concerning the interpretation of the past—the search for a historical anchor for modern constructs of national identity. Using the word “return” suggests that during the years of communism those countries were outside Europe and now need to make an effort to be back in it. Thus, Western Europe is the model of a “proper” European identity, ⁵ and Russia, by continuing the Soviet Union, is its opposite (because under its influence Eastern European countries were not “in Europe”). ⁶ This is a challenge for the politics of memory in European post-communist countries. They must try to find an earlier “Europeanness” that could form a background for their efforts to re-enter the European community.

There is no single period in which all countries of the region could find a source for a present-day, modern national identity. For many societies of the region, this is the interwar period, a period of independence recovered after World War I that becomes the source of axiological, ideological, and identity patterns. However, not for all countries does this hold true, since some, such as the western Soviet republics (Belarus and Ukraine), Slovakia, and the nations that became a part of Yugoslavia, were not independent states at that time. Also, for Hungary, this was a period dominated by the trauma of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon and the loss of most of the two-thirds of territory that to this day remains outside the Hungarian state. ⁷ These societies must therefore seek a “golden age” as the background for a national memory in other, often very distant, times. It is also worth noting that the issue of formation of collective memory in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is not limited to the cultural aspect of social life, but has huge political significance, both in the arena of internal policy of particular countries and the arena of international politics. ⁸

In some countries, religion was an important element for building a national identity after the fall of communism. This phenomenon can be observed, for example, in Poland, but Russia is also a very interesting case. In this country, the memory policy dealing with the communist era refers to old traditions and the close connection between the Church and the state. The power of religious narratives about the past is the focus of the article “Between History and Religion—The New Russian Martyrdom as an Invented Tradition” by Zuzanna Bogumił and Marta Łukaszewicz ⁹ describing the genealogy of the Russian Orthodox Church’s new martyrdom phenomenon —the cult of Orthodox Church believers murdered during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and during the Communist era in the Soviet Union. The authors analyze the narratives about the new martyrs as a way of reconciliation with a troublesome past, and the same time, a means of strengthening the state’s national identity politics.

Reflections on the changes in the collective memory of Eastern Europe are stretched between two positions—some researchers observe a revival of national memory in the countries of the region and others, in turn, see the second decade of the post-communist period as a time of overcoming national memory. These include, among others, Jorg Hackamnn, a researcher of memory in Poland and the Baltic countries, who notes, “Collective memories in Eastern Europe no longer form new emerging islands of nationalism which appear again under the melting ice of the Cold War. What may be described as a common feature is the projection of history as a departure from a place to which no one ever wants to return. In that regard one may speak of a foundational myth, of a historical notion which is not based on a positive image of the past, but on a negative one. Such negative notions, as we know from the history of nation building, may be even stronger in symbolizing the values of a group.” ¹⁰ We have therefore not faced the cultivation of the past but an attempt to overcome it, also carried out by memory activities. The events of the past are commemorated in order that they should never be repeated, and not because societies contemplate returning to the “good old days.” In this sense, martyrological memory, here analyzed through Russia’s politics of memory, can be seen as a symbolic separation of the past from the present and future. Commemorating the victims emphasizes the sinister character of the old days.

Difficult Memories—The Memory of Conflicts between National and Ethnic Groups

The past is also of great importance in relations between countries—it can become the basis for building alliances, and it may cause conflicts. Many countries of Eastern Europe have faced problems arising from this. With changes in the interpretation of the past and revelation of forgotten events, a need to revise relations with other countries also appeared. In the days of communism, when Eastern countries were in the same political bloc, conflicts of the past were dormant. The authorities tried to erase them from collective memory (although not always successfully). After the fall of communism, some of these countries fell into the “memory trap”—on the one hand, the processes of social recollection revealed old conflicts (sometimes bloody and dramatic ones) and created a strong desire to compensate the victims and commemorate them but, on the other hand, cooperation between the countries of the former communist bloc proved to be an important part of building geopolitical security, something we can observe, for example, in relations between Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania. ¹¹ This posed a difficult problem: how to reconcile the desire to commemorate and settle the past (which seemed particularly important when for decades there had been no such possibility) and the desire to build new interstate relations oriented toward the future.

During communism, not only was the memory of both ethnic and national conflicts relegated to social oblivion but so too other elements of the past. Eastern Europe also “recalled” other issues, such as former political and ideological divisions, collaboration with the occupiers during the war, ¹² and conflicts with minority groups. Competing minority memories about events from the communist past is the subject of the article “‘Everybody Loved Each Other There’—Roma Memories of the One-Time Cinka Panna Colony in Oradea and Its Liquidation during the Communist Times” by Zsuzsa Plainer. ¹³ She compares post-socialist memories regarding the local past of two minority groups (Hungarians and Roma) from the Romanian town Oradea. Roma have become a muted group within the non-Roma process of remembering and forgetting the communist past in this town because Hungarian cultural memories marginalize, misunderstand, and misrepresent the Roma colony.

This case study shows that all of the elements mentioned above can either be marginalized or become a potential hotbed for new mnemonic conflicts. Paradoxically, however, in some cases inclusion in a wider European mnemonic narrative can foster not the resolution of a difficult past, but its erasure from public discourse. Inclusion in the “Europeanization” of narratives of the past, ¹⁴ including the memory of the Holocaust, ¹⁵ can serve not only to achieve integration with Western Europe but also to push the memory of ethnic and regional conflicts and collaboration with the Nazi regime to the margins of public discourse. ¹⁶ Europeanization is also seen as an opportunity for a country that has been fragmented with respect to politics, nationality, and memory, as in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. ¹⁷ Focusing on narratives leading from World War II through the communist period to the unification with Western Europe fosters a sense of Europeanness but, at the same time, eliminates the complex, often conflicting, pasts of individual groups ¹⁸ .

Martyrological memory is closely connected with the second group of controversies about the past; those that concern a reformulation of the earlier communist narrative and the introduction of new elements into the collective memory. The memory of World War II, in particular, has undergone many changes. In the days of communism in the Eastern Bloc, this was primarily a heroic memory—even if societies remembered the victims, the basic narrative concerned the “victory over fascism” at the side of the Red Army. After the fall of communism, the memory of the war focused much more on the victims, and the heroic narrative was limited to commemorations of the underground resistance movement (but this is a heroism that was ultimately completed with defeat and the introduction of the communist regime, not the heroism of a triumphant victory and a “new, better world,” as in earlier narratives). Only in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine does the triumphal memory of the victory over fascism in the Great Patriotic War still persist. ¹⁹ In other countries, the martyrological narrative is further strengthened by commemorating the victims of the communist era. Eastern Europe thus appears as an area of disasters, suffering, and trauma. ²⁰ Moreover, the desire to recognize the suffering of unrecognized victims sometimes causes “martyrological competition,” in which focusing on one kind of suffering obscures the suffering of other groups, for example, of minority groups such as the Roma. ²¹

As Omer Bartov noticed, “the victim trope is a central feature of our time.” ²² The memory of the victims has a moral dimension that is difficult to challenge, and the rituals of national forgiveness become an important element of international politics. ²³ Placing nations as a whole in the position of perpetrator or victim has led to the phenomenon of “victimhood nationalism.” ²⁴ National identity is built in such cases on the memory of victims who were murdered, imprisoned, or displaced, not because of their individual characteristics or actions but because they belonged to a particular ethnic or religious group. The memory of martyrdom is also a “travelling memory”—the different categories of victims or crimes begin to function as metonymy and gain international significance. Especially in the case of the memory of the Holocaust we observe a shift from national memory (and the memory of national victims) to a transnational memory laying the foundation for a common European identity. ²⁵ The “return to Europe” means joining not only a common political and economic system but also a common European memory in which the narratives of World War II and the Holocaust become central elements. However, as has been shown by researchers, there is no place in this European memory for remembering communism, and its memory remains generally unrecognized and incomprehensible in Western Europe, although it is the basis for the contemporary identities of the East European countries. ²⁶

In different countries, there are different hierarchies of trauma; for example, although many Ukrainians experienced resettlement and deportation, these have no great importance in collective memory in Ukraine because it has focused primarily on the victims of the Great Famine. ²⁷ The memory of territories lost after the war is far more important in Poland, although it does not have state support and operates mainly in local communities. The basic element of the collective memory in Poland, however, are the victims of the German and Soviet occupations during the war. ²⁸ On the other hand, in the Baltic countries, deportations and other Soviet repressions are the most important elements of collective memory. ²⁹ And sometimes, after joining the European Union, national trauma has slowly begun to change into nostalgia, as in the case of the memory of the Treaty of Trianon in Hungary ³⁰ or the memory of the lost eastern territories in Poland. ³¹

Memory of Communism—The Drive for Recognition and Post-communist Nostalgia

One of the most important questions facing researchers into collective memory in Eastern Europe is whether such a social phenomenon as the common memory of post-communist Europe exists, and does the memory of the past unite or divide the countries of this part of the continent? Is it the experience of communism which is common to all of them (including a part of Germany)? Or are they instead united by a geopolitical position between the East (most frequently identified with the Russian state) and the West (meaning that the region is defined by other historical and cultural processes than the experience of communism and post-communism)?

How far the West recognizes Eastern European memory (understood both as the shared memory of the communist period and as particular memories in the individual countries) is another important question. Can the narratives of the past become an element of political and moral capital for post-communist countries to use in their relations with the West? Although the countries of Eastern Europe cannot compete with their Western neighbours in terms of economic development, they could build “moral capital” based on asserting their contribution to the collapse of communism and thus levelling divisions within Europe and spreading democracy. According to one of the narratives about the past in the countries of Eastern Europe, the collapse of communism benefited not only those countries but also all of Europe. In emphasizing the importance of the fall of communism, one can observe a moral narrative: the need to recognize the suffering of the societies of Eastern Europe during communist times is presented as a self-evident obligation, not a subject for discussion. Translated into the language of the European community, this means recognizing the contribution of Eastern European countries to maintaining peace and democracy and unifying the continent (which also means political and economic benefits). Hence the past contributes to self-esteem in relation to the countries of Western Europe, although how such an interpretation is received in these countries remains an open question.

The period of post-communism is a specific moment in a constant process of memory transmission because, on the one hand, it is a period of “memory boom” but, on the other, it clearly shows that collective memory is mutable and constantly under reconstruction. In a situation of rapid social change, people can observe on an everyday basis the transformation of a collective memory in the public sphere—the changes concern official interpretations of the past (communicated via the media or the educational system), the heroic canon, new anniversaries and holidays that come into being and old ones that are eliminated, places in the public space that are renamed, monuments that are liquidated and others that are erected. This means that historical politics goes on in front of people’s eyes and becomes the subject of public debate, which is conducive to thinking in terms of the manipulation and implementation of short-term political interests. This kind of thinking pushes people toward a private biographical history, but it can also cause discouragement and fatigue from an overabundance of memory, and sometimes the refusal to change the interpretation of the past.

One consequence of emphasizing the importance of memory in the public sphere is not only an interest in the past but also post-communist nostalgia. However, Maria Todorova and Zsuzsa Gille ³² noticed that although the phenomenon of post-communist nostalgia exists in Eastern Europe, one cannot think of it as a common trait of this part of Europe because it varies quite significantly and depends on local conditions. For example, according to Neringa Klumbytė, ³³ nostalgia for Soviet times in Lithuania is a reaction to difficult economic conditions and social marginalization. This nostalgia does not mean denying the atrocities of the communist era or pursuing its return, but is a discursive way of expressing the sufferings of the post-Soviet period. The special case of nostalgia based on the memory of economic modernization in Slovakia is analyzed by Juraj Buzalka in his article “Post-Peasant Memories: Populist or Communist Nostalgia.” ³⁴ The author deals with the controversies over links between post-communist nostalgia and the economic practices of everyday life during communism and analyzes a specific model of livelihood strategies, ideas, and practices that he calls “post-peasant.” People become nostalgic about that everyday-life model and that is why it is nowadays mobilized by populist politicians.

In turn, Maya Nadkarni ³⁵ indicates that the idea of the West as a utopian paradise, still found in many Eastern European countries, can also be interpreted as an element of nostalgia reduced to the private sphere that does not affect the political sphere. Contemporary disillusionment with politics is expressed by nostalgia for elements of everyday life under communism (and in those days private life ensured an escape from the sphere of politics). Béla Nóvé proposes the term “anti-totalitarian nostalgia” for the attitudes of those who miss the 1980s not because of their misery but because of the hopes and dreams that accompanied the people then, and that after the fall of communism did not turn into really-existing solidarity and civic society. ³⁶ Some researchers, however, believe that talking about post-communist nostalgia means emphasizing the lower position of Eastern Europe and its underdevelopment in relation to the West. ³⁷

The communist past has in many Eastern European countries become a subject of tourism and the entertainment industries. Many museums and sites of memory (both private and public) with very different characters have come into being. ³⁸ Some of them focus on the narrative of martyrdom, others depict everyday life under communism, and even try to portray communist reality in a comical and popular style through amusement parks. The existence of such places can be interpreted as an expression of post-communist nostalgia but also as a way to distance oneself from the communist era—the final destruction of its horror by mocking the system and making it absurd.

Is Memory in Eastern Europe Distinctive?

Looking at the whole region through the prism of social attitudes toward the communist past, we can ask whether East European post-communism is unique. Concepts suggesting that memory in Western and Eastern Europe differs significantly not only in content but also in form were widespread among social scientists in the 1990s. Referring to this period, and this social science perspective, Pakier and Wawrzyniak noticed that “it treats Eastern European processes of remembering normatively and in terms of mnemonic pathologies, in which East European post-communist societies have to catch up with the Western European models of remembering the past. What was also typical until recently was to treat Eastern Europe as a marginal, supplementary, or in the best-case scenario, an exceptional issue in the discussions of Europeanization of memory. . . . While previously the East Europeans found it difficult to draw the attention of their Western counterparts with regard to questions of their history and memory, the official commemorations and public controversies of the last few years show that Eastern Europe has become an important trigger for discussions about the content and form of a European narrative.” ³⁹

Differences in the memory of the events of the twentieth century in Europe arise from history itself—both the course of World War II and the post-war period looked different in the East and in the West. The East was the region where the greatest tragedies of World War II had occurred. Most of the millions of victims in Eastern Europe had died in mass killings and ethnic cleansing—with the Holocaust in first place—and from hunger or during numerous resettlements and escapes, or were expelled from their homelands. ⁴⁰ The war meant not only repression by the occupiers but also a catalyst for the rapid intensification of earlier conflicts between different ethnic and social groups. And after the war, the memory of some of these atrocities became “hidden” or even forbidden during the communist era, which also generated a new set of tragic memories. Considering the issues of a collective memory in the regional framework is therefore justified by history. However, as indicated by Pakier and Wawrzyniak, ⁴¹ talking about the memory of Eastern Europe means taking into account the course of historical events and their meaning within the memory in this part of Europe as well as the current position of this region in Europe, since collective memory is always updating the past and depends on the situation in which this past is recollected. The position of Eastern Europe as a region aspiring to take an equal place in a united Europe requires emphasizing those elements that are important for the West, such as the fight against totalitarianism, the memory of the Holocaust, or contribution to the unification of Europe by making the fall of communism possible.