Dear Reader,

We are pleased to announce the release of our new publication:

History of Communism in Europe: Vol. 6 / 2015

Among the most used expressions in scholarly articles concerning collective memory, is “dealing with the past”, or its more specific alternative, “dealing with the traumatic past”. This is a rather inexact formulation, because what scholars, artist, curators deal with is not the past in itself but the manner in which it is narrated and represented, or remembered, reconstructed. A series of questions are triggered by this statement: who “remembers”, for what purpose, with what consequences? The scope of this yearbook is to present two different ways of approaching the construction of collective remembrance: the authoritarian one and the post-authoritarian one. The articles discuss case studies of collective memory and identity building in Communist Romania, comparative studies of participative art in post-authoritarian regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, or intricate artistic approaches of traumatic collective memories.

Contents (for abstracts click here)

FOREWORD

Radu Preda: What Must We Not Forget

ARGUMENT

Dalia BATHORY: Authoritarian and Post-authoritarian Practices of Building Collective Memory in Central and Eastern Europe

I.     COMMUNISM EMBEDDED – BOOKS, SHELVES, CURTAINS

Ruxandra CÂMPEANU: “Revis(it)ing the Romanian Cultural Heritage” during Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej’s Regime: The Role of Literary Critics in the Battle for the Canon as a Form of Preserving the Cultural Memory of a Community

Claudia ȘERBĂNUȚĂ: Memory Exercises in Public Libraries

Bianca FELSEGHI: Profiling The Audience: Theatre and Repertoires In 1970’s Romania. Case Study: The National Theatre in Cluj-Napoca

II.     THE PAST BEHIND THE SHOWCASE

Irina HASNAS-HUBBARD: Memorialization of Challenging Topics. Artists’ Interventions as Examples of Museum (Good) Practice

Ewa JANISZ: Atrocity and Aesthetics.The Politics of Remembering and Representing the Holocaust in Polish Contemporary Art: Zbigniew Libera’s “Lego Concentration Camp”

Andrea BRAIT: The Nation as a Victim: Perspectives in Hungarian Museums

Ioana HAȘU: Recalling Trauma: Photographs as Links to a Memory Chain for Survivors of Armed Anti-Communist Resistance in Romania

III.    IMMANENT HISTORIES, TANGIBLE MEMORIES

Melinda HARLOV: A Square that Has Seen it All: The History of the Nowadays ’56-ers Square in Budapest

Maria-Alina ASAVEI: Participatory Cultures of Remembrance: The Artistic Memory of the Communist Past in Romania and Bulgaria

We thank you for your consideration and hope you take advantage of this special offer.