INDG 401 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Holodomor, In The Spotlight, Alexey Miller
9 Jun 2018
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Lecture 11 RUSSIAN MEMORY POLITICS IN THE (EAST) EUROPEAN CONTEXT
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
- new law in Poland: no "polish holocaust": prohibits any mentioning of polish holocaust in any
way implicating the Poles in the murder of deported Jews
- Ruta Vanagaite and her book Our Own: refers to holocaust in Lithuania and shows the way in
which the locals were involved and it caused huge controversy because people assume it was just
the Germans and they didn't have anything to do w it
- the discussion about Anne Applebaum's book on the Holodomor: genocide against Ukrainian
people. Critics
- cultural wars in Russia:
- Matilda
- Stalin's death
- Russia: My History Exhibitions
- the dispute about minister of culture Vladimir Mendisky's doctoral thesis: it does not qualify
as a piece of scholarly work. It's about the western view of history.
- and much more
HISTORY AND POLITICS IN EUROPE
- Germany as the point of origin; usually Russia is not taken as an example, it's centers on the
west
- esp. laws against Holocaust denial
- European Union as a peace project ("Never again"). The EU with its basic idea of integration
came about as a peace project to prevent a new war in Europe and make sure that France and
Germany but the europeans in general wouldn't go at war again.
- liberal consensus, strong consensus, reconciliation, community building: consensual view of the
past, idea that western Europe was free, democratic, and had different experience and the east
european experience was bad and negative, due to the Soviet Union. This was resonating w the
nationalist narratives as they were being re articulated during the collapse of the socialist system
an the beginning of the 90s. European didn't like the memory of Holocaust. there are now official
holidays
what was important is the existence of a pan european consensus/ The east european actively took
part inn re designing memory
this consensus of the EU was liberal because of the idea of democracy as such and the idea of
deliberation, reconocliaitona nd community building. the most important part was to learn how to
live w the past, and then come to consensus where u know what the limits and general views are
and u then live together in this environment.
the project was never completed (neo nazi, holocaust deniers, xenophobia...) this consensus
wasn't ideal but at least based on democratic institutions, idea that we need to talk about it. This
legacy might be getting lost rn.
HISTORY AND POLITICS IN EUROPE
- 2004: a group of polis historians proclaim the need for history politics
- 2005: Putin: collapse of the USSR wad the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century'
- 2006: it's gaining momnetum
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