Publications

This book discusses the active relationship among the mechanics of memory, visual practices, and historical narratives.
Reflection on memory and its ties with historical narratives cannot be separated from reflection on the visual and the image as its points of reference which function in time. This volume addresses precisely that temporal aspect of the image, without reducing it to a neutral trace of the past, a mnemotechnical support of memory. As a commemorative device, the image fixes, structures, and crystalizes memory, turning the view of the past into myth. It may, however, also stimulate, transform, and update memory, functioning as a matrix of interpretation and understanding the past. The book questions whether the functioning of the visual matrices of memory can be related to a particular historical and geographical scope, that is, to Central and Eastern Europe, and whether it is possible to find their origin and decide if they are just local and regional or perhaps also Western European and universal. It focuses on the artistic reflection on time and history, in the reconstructions of memory due to change of frontiers and political regimes, as well as endeavours to impose some specific political structure on territories which were complex and mixed in terms of national identity, religion and social composition.

The volume is ideal for students and scholars of memory studies, history and visual studies.

Editors:
Michał Haake is Professor and art historian at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. His research interests focus on history of European painting from medieval to contemporary art and art history methodology. His publications include Figuralizm Aleksandra Gierymskiego (Aleksander Gierymski’s Figuralism) (2015) and Obraz jako obiektteoretyczny (Image as the Theoretical Object) (as co-editor, 2020).

Piotr Juszkiewicz is an art historian and a professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. His publications include From the Bliss of Historiography to the "Game of Nothing". Polish Art Criticism of the of the Post-Stalinist "Thaw" (2005) and The Shadow of Modernism (2013).

This set of essays introduces readers to new historical research on the creation of the new order in East-Central Europe in the period immediately following 1918.

The book offers insights into the political, diplomatic, military, economic and cultural conditions out of which the New Europe was born. Experts from various countries take into account three perspectives. They give equal attention to both the Western and Eastern fronts; they recognise that on 11 November 1918, the War ended only on the Western front and violence continued in multiple forms over the next five years; and they show how state-building after 1918 in Central and Eastern Europe was marked by a mixture of innovation and instability. Thus, the volume focuses on three kinds of narratives: those related to conflicts and violence, those related to the recasting of civil life in new structures and institutions, and those related to remembrance and representations of these years in the public sphere.

Taking a step towards writing a fully European history of the Great War and its aftermath, the volume offers an original approach to this decisive period in 20th-century European history.

Editors:
Bartosz Dziewanowski-Stefańczyk is Deputy Head of the Academic Department at the Institute of European Network Remembrance and Solidarity and Researcher at the History Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. His fields of research include Polish-German relations, Polish foreign politics of memory and cultural diplomacy. He is currently writing a book on history as a tool of Polish diplomacy towards Germany, 1918‒1939.

Jay Winter is Charles J. Stille Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University and Honorary Professor at the Australian National University. His fields of research include the First World War in history and memory, and the Armenian Genocide of 1915. He is currently writing a history of the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 and a book on the cultural history of modern war.

The volume focuses on the years following the First World War (1918–1923), when political, military, cultural, social and economic developments consolidated to a high degree in Eastern Europe. This period was shaped, on the one hand, by the efforts to establish an international structure for peace and to set previously oppressed nations on the road to emancipation. On the other hand, it was also defined by political revisionism and territorial claims, as well as a level of political violence that was effectively a continuation of the war in many places, albeit under modified conditions. Political decision-makers sought to protect the emerging nation states from radical political utopias but simultaneously had to rise to the challenges of a social and economic crisis, manage the reconstruction of the many extensively devastated landscapes and provide for the social care and support of victims of war.

Edited by: Burkhard Olschowsky (BKGE Oldenburg), Piotr Juszkiewicz (University of Poznań) and Jan Rydel (Pedagogical University of Kraków).

When in 1989 the communist system tumbled, the whole world was astounded. Since the onset of the Round Table talks in Poland in February until the execution of Elena and Nicolae Ceauşescu in December, Central and Eastern Europe underwent a tempestuous yet relatively non-bloody process of breaking free from the communist regime. Today, thirty years down the road, the perspective seems distant enough to attempt comparative studies without being too emotional.

Authors: Adam Burakowski, Aleksander Gubrynowicz, Paweł Ukielski

Publishers: Natolin European Centre, European Network Remembrance and Solidarity

What are ‘memory wars’?

How can you distinguish the difference between the truth about the past and historical fake news?

How can you not be manipulated?

With our guide, you do not have to be a history professor to recognize fake news or manipulations relating to the past.

Say no to disinformation!

What are 'memory wars'?

How can you distinguish the difference between the truth about the past and historical fake news?

How can you not be manipulated?

With our guide, you do not have to be a history professor to recognize fake news or manipulations relating to the past.

Say no to disinformation!

In creating the first issue of Remembrance and Solidarity: Studies in 20th Century European History, we elected not to give it a theme any more precise than what the title seems to suggest. Nonetheless, the scholars we invited to contribute, no matter whether they were experienced or young, submitted texts in which two relatively clear tendencies are evident. The first is the theme of remembering the history of the 20th century in terms of political and societal issues. The authors describe debates and decision-making processes leading to the establishment of days commemorating certain events or situations in which new political rituals come into being that are meant to change our perception of the past. They compare the reigning principles in historical memory in Eastern and Western Europe, and consider the roles of the great historical caesurae in forming a sense of community within a generation. The subject of memory and its political function and potential has evidently lost none of its relevance, and continues to attract researchers, although it has been widely discussed and addressed in Europe for at least twenty years. Another aspect that unites the majority of texts is reference to communist history. This surely results from the history of the communist system and regimes having been ‘delved into’ to a much lesser degree than that of Hitlerism and its affiliated ideologies, and the sinister mark they have left on the history of 20th-century Europe. Although it is not the intention of the publishers of Studies to oppose this sort of compensatory work in the fields of history and memory, we hope that the coming issues of our annual magazine will be devoted to the memory of crises (2013), which were plentiful in 20th-century Europe, and the memory of World War One and its far-reaching effects (2014).

Since there are a number of relevant periodicals dealing with Holocaust research, the ‘Call for Articles’ for this current issue, published in February 2015, requested a focus on issues that are particularly relevant to the work of the ENRS. The objective was to obtain current research contributions from different European countries and to address authors with regional and methodologically different approaches. The response to this call has been overwhelming. The fifteen contributions ultimately selected for publication in this issue were written by an international group of authors either in English or in their native language and then translated into English. They deal with Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Romania, Ukraine, Slovakia and Hungary, or Central and Eastern Europe as a whole. The issue is divided into two main parts: I. Articles, which include academic research, and II. Miscellanea, which present both project reports and professional reflections. The Articles are subdivided into two further sections: ‘History – Studies on the Period’ focuses on the history of oppression and dispossession of Jews as well as the history and course of the murders in different local, regional and national contexts; and ‘Memory – Studies on Remembrance’ centres on post-1945 memory and remembrance, in which a variety of forms of public and private remembrance and memory preservation are considered, including literature, exhibitions, films and memorials. Special emphasis is placed here on the ways in which the subject was handled during the communist era and the question of comparability of the Holocaust / Shoah with the crimes of Stalinism.

This publication is a summary of the authors' research commissioned by ENRS, which, in connection with its academic and educational activities, asked a group of scientists: what is worth learning about contemporary youth to create a reliable diagnosis of potentially dangerous attitudes or beliefs? The knowledge gained in this way is to help "vaccinate" young people against totalitarian inclinations.

The publication presents the 2020 catalogue of the exhibition 'Between Life and Death. Stories of Rescue during the Holocaust.'

The publication presents the 2019 edition of the Sound in the Silence project held at the Denkort Bunker Valentin memorial.