Collective Memories In War

This edited collection offers an empirical exploration of social memory in the context of politics, war, identity and culture. With a substantive focus on Eastern Europe, it employs the methodologies of visual studies, content and discourse analysis, in-depth interviews and surveys to substantiate how memory narratives are composed and rewritten in changing ideological and political contexts. The book examines various historical events, including the Russian-Afghan war of 1979-89 and World War II, and considers public and local rituals, monuments and museums, textbook accounts, gender and the body. As such it provides a rich picture of post-socialist memory construction and function based in interdisciplinary memory studies.

This edited collection offers an empirical exploration of social memory in the context of politics, war, identity and culture. With a substantive focus on Eastern Europe, it employs the methodologies of visual studies, content and discourse analysis, in-depth interviews and surveys to substantiate how memory narratives are composed and rewritten in changing ideological and political contexts. The book examines various historical events, including the Russian-Afghan war of 1979-89 and World War II, and considers public and local rituals, monuments and museums, textbook accounts, gender and the body. As such it provides a rich picture of post-socialist memory construction and function based in interdisciplinary memory studies.

Collective Traumas is about the traumatic European history of the 20th century - war, genocide, dictatorship, ethnic cleansing - and how individuals, communities and nations have dealt with their dark past through remembrance, historiography and legal settlements. Memories, and especially collective memories, serve as foundations for national identities and are politically charged. Regardless whether memory is used to support or to challenge established ideologies, it is inevitably subject to political tensions. Consequently, memory, history and amnesia tend to be used and abused for different political and ideological purposes. From the perspectives of historical, literary and visual studies the essays focus on how the experiences of war and profound conflict have been represented and remembered in different national cultures and communities. This volume is a vital contribution to memory studies and trauma theory. Collective Traumas is a result of the multidisciplinary research project on Memory Culture that was initiated in 2002 at Karlstad University, Sweden. A previous publication with Peter Lang is Memory Work: The Theory and Practice of Memory (2005).

Collective Memory examines the difficult transmission of memory in France of the Algerian War of independence (1954-1962). Emphasizing the current lack of transmission of memories of this war through a detailed case study of three crucial vectors of memory-the teaching of school history, coverage in the media, and discussion in the family- author Jo McCormack argues that lack of transmission of memories is feeding into contemporary racism and exclusion in France. Collective Memory draws extensively on interviews with historians, teachers, and pupils, as well as on secondary sources and media analysis. McCormack proposes that a greater "work of memory" needs to be undertaken if France is to overcome the division in French society that stems from the war. There has been little reconciliation of divisive group memories, a situation that leaves many individuals without a voice on this important subject. "Memory battles" dominate discussion of the topic as many issues periodically flare up and cannot yet be overcome. Book jacket.

War Memories explores the patchwork formed by collective memory, public remembrance, private recollection, and the ways in which they form a complex composition of observations, initiatives, and experiences. Offering an international perspective on war commemoration, contributors consider the process of assembling historical facts and subjective experiences to show how these points of view diverge according to various social, cultural, political, and historical perspectives. Encompassing the representations of wars in the English-speaking world over the last hundred years, this collection presents an extensive, yet integrated, reflection on various types of commemoration and interpretations of events. Essays respond to common questions regarding war memory: how and why do we remember war? What does commemoration tell us about the actors in wars? How does commemoration reflect contemporary society’s culture of war? War Memories disseminates current knowledge on the performance, interpretation, and rewriting of facts and events during and after wars, while focusing on how patriotic fervour, resistance, conscientious objection, injury, trauma, and propaganda contribute to the shaping of individual and collective memory. Contributors include Joan Beaumont (Australian National University, Canberra), Gilles Chamerois (University of Brest, France), Subarno Chattarji (University of Delhi, India), Nicole Cloarec (Rennes 1 University, France), Corinne David-Ives (European University of Brittany – Rennes 2, France), Jeffrey Demsky (San Bernardino Valley College, California), Sam Edwards (Manchester Metropolitan University), Georges Fournier (Jean Moulin University, France), Annie Gagiano (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa), David Haigron (Rennes 2 University, France), Judith Keene (University of Sydney, Australia), Melissa King (San Bernardino Valley College, California), Christine Knauer (Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Germany), Liliane Louvel (University of Poitiers), Michelle P. Moore (Canadian Army Doctrine and Training Centre, Kingston, Ontario), John Mullen (University of Rouen, France), Lorie-Anne Duech-Rainville (Caen University, France), Elizabeth Rechniewski (Australian Research Council Discovery Project), Raphaël Ricaud (University ‘Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense’, France), Laura Robinson (Royal Military College of Canada), and Isabelle Roblin (Université du Littoral-Côte d’Opale, France).

This is a masterful volume on remembrance and war in the twentieth century. Jay Winter locates the fascination with the subject of memory within a long-term trajectory that focuses on the Great War. Images, languages, and practices that appeared during and after the two world wars focused on the need to acknowledge the victims of war and shaped the ways in which future conflicts were imagined and remembered. At the core of the "memory boom" is an array of collective meditations on war and the victims of war, Winter says. The book begins by tracing the origins of contemporary interest in memory, then describes practices of remembrance that have linked history and memory, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century. The author also considers "theaters of memory"-film, television, museums, and war crimes trials in which the past is seen through public representations of memories. The book concludes with reflections on the significance of these practices for the cultural history of the twentieth century as a whole.

This book bridges theoretical gaps that exist between the meta-concepts of memory, place and identity by positioning its lens on the emplaced practices of commemoration and the remembrance of war and conflict. This book examines how diverse publics relate to their wartime histories through engagements with everyday collective memories, in differing places. Specifically addressing questions of place-making, displacement and identity, contributions shed new light on the processes of commemoration of war in everyday urban façades and within generations of families and national communities. Contributions seek to clarify how we connect with memories and places of war and conflict. The spatial and narrative manifestations of attempts to contextualise wartime memories of loss, trauma, conflict, victory and suffering are refracted through the roles played by emotion and identity construction in the shaping of post-war remembrances. This book offers a multidisciplinary perspective, with insights from history, memory studies, social psychology, cultural and urban geography, to contextualise memories of war and their ‘use’ by national governments, perpetrators, victims and in family histories.

‘This is comparative history on a grand scale, skilfully analysing complex national debates and drawing major conclusions without ever losing the necessary nuances of interpretation.’ Stefan Berger, University of Manchester, UK Remembering the Road to World War Two is a broad and comparative international survey of the historiography of the origins of the Second World War. It explores how, in the case of each of the major combatant countries, historical writing on the origins of the Second World War has been inextricably entwined with debates over national identity and collective memory. Spanning seven case studies – the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, France, Great Britain, the United States and Japan – Patrick Finney proposes a fresh approach to the politics of historiography. This provocative volume discusses the political, cultural, disciplinary and archival factors which have contributed to the evolving construction of historical interpretations. It analyses the complex and multi-faceted relationships between texts about the origins of the war, the negotiation of conceptions of national identity and unfolding processes of war remembrance. Offering an innovative perspective on international history and enriching the literature on collective memory, this book will prove fascinating reading for all students of the Second World War.