Memory, Heritage and Public History in Central and Eastern Europe

A yellow, hazy landscape. Hills and church spires are visible through the haze. Looks tranquil.

Commissioning editor: Jen McCall

Series editors: Barbara Törnquist-Plewa, Violeta Davoliūtė, and Lavinia Stan

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Memory, cultural heritage and history all too often have been treated as separate concepts. However, during the last two decades with the multi- and interdisciplinary field of memory studies rapidly expanding, it has become clear that both heritage and history may be seen as specific forms of cultural memory or agents of memory structuring. While struggling with their difficult heritage, traumatic and conflicting memories and explosive politics of memory, Central and Eastern Europeans have become increasingly entangled in global processes and ensuing political, socio-economic, cultural, and civilizational challenges.

This new series furthers the cooperation between scholars working within these fields and answers the urgent demand for more publishing outlets for  recent scholarship. The starting point for the scholarly reflection in the series will be the societies of Central and Eastern Europe, but the scope of the series will reach beyond these regions.

Topics of relevance to the series might include:

  • Politics of memory and aesthetics in urban spaces

  • Churches as agents and producers of public history and memory

  • ‘Memory Laws’ and the patterns of collective memory regulation in Central and Eastern Europe

  • Competitive victimhood as an obstacle in reconciliation processes

  • The appropriation of the discourse on Human Rights and cosmopolitan memory by the far-right and anti-globalist movements

  • Memory and nationalism / national identity

  • Struggles over monuments, street names and public symbols

  • Competing memories of various national and diasporic groups

  • Competing memories of war, conflict and dictatorship

  • Memory and transitional justice

  • Truth and memory

  • Memory institutes as public history agents

  • Digital memory practices and political activism

  • Memory politics and foreign policy

  • Postcolonialism and memory

  • Populism and memory

  • Migration and memory

  • Memory and social media

  • Public history and cultural diplomacy

  • Conspiracy theories and memory

  • Memory and rewriting of history books

  • Public history and national symbols

  • Museums and nostalgia

Advisory Board

Stefan Berger, Ruhr University

Marko Demantowsky, University of Vienna

Constantin Iordachi, Central European University

Siobhan Kattago, University of Tartu

Daniela Koleva, Sofia University

Krzysztof Kowalski, Jagellonian University

Katerina Kralova, Charles University

Jeffrey Olick, University of Virginia

Balázs Trencsényi, Central European University

Jenny Wüstenberg, Nottingham University