Occupation and Communism in Eastern European Museums: Re-Visualizing the Recent Past

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This volume offers fresh perspectives on the representation of the recent past in museums of the Second World War and of communism in post-communist Eastern Europe. It does so against the background of recent European-wide debates on history, memory and politics. The contributors from across Europe focus comparatively on a wide variety of case studies, pointing out similarities and differences, and accounting for transnational patterns of remembrance at regional and European level. Occupation and Communism in Eastern European Museums argues that museums have a huge influence on the image of the communist past in Eastern Europe. It shows how they use a vast array of media tools, visual tactics and commercial strategies in order to substantiate ideological approaches to the past and to shape the attitude of public opinion.

Reviews

This book is an indispensable guide to the complexities of the post-communist efforts to institutionalise, through museums and exhibitions, various memories of the defunct dictatorial regimes. * Vladimir Tismaneanu, Professor of Politics, University of Maryland, USA *
Occupation and Communism in Eastern European Museums is a wonderful testimony to the power of scholarship to intervene, through sharp analysis, in memory debates and act as a counterforce to those right-wing populist nationalisms that are currently endangering democracies across east-central and eastern Europe and the wider world. * Stefan Berger, Professor of History and Director of the Institute for Social Movements, House for the History of the Ruhr, Germany *
Eastern Europe is a place where history really matters: it evokes heated passions and conflicts, both within nations and between states, and museums are at the forefront of this battlefield. This book greatly helps understand the complicated and fascinating east European memory landscape and the pivotal role the museums play in it. * Pawel Machcewicz, Professor of History, Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences *

Author Bio

Constantin Iordachi is Professor in the History Department at Central European University, Hungary. He is the author of Liberalism, Constitutional Nationalism and Minorities: The Making of Romanian Citizenship, c. 1750-1918 (2019) and editor of Comparative Fascist Studies (2009). Pter Apor is Research Fellow at the Institute of History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary. He is the author of Fabricating Authenticity in Soviet Hungary: The Afterlife of the First Hungarian Soviet Republic in the Age of State Socialism (2014).