Publications

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.

The issue is devoted to the diverse aspects of violence in 20th-century European history. It features two distinct contribution categories: studies and essays. The research papers showcase the complexity and multiple perspectives from which the phenomenon of violence can be studied. The second category is the synthesis of the most important lectures presented at the European Remembrance Symposium, 'Violence in 20th-century European history: commemorating, documenting, educating', Brussels, 2017.

The 4th issue – entitled “The memory of economic crisis” – focuses on depressions, recessions, shortages, and hyperinflation. These topics are not often a subject of memory studies, however memories of war and revolution often center on the economic experience of these events. Therefore, scholars look among others into Living in Warsaw under Hyperinflation in 1923 (by Izabela Mrzygłód), Parallels of Economic Business Cycles in Slovakia (by Ľudovít Hallon), Public Transportation in Budapest in 1945-46 (by Zsuzsa Frisnyák) and discuss The Possibility of Remembering Economic Crisis (by Łukasz Mańczyk).

This issue of Remembrance and Solidarity Studies is entirely dedicated to the European memory of the First World War. The authors, among others Andrzej Chwalba, Christian Wevelsiep, Jenny Wustenberg, and Mark W. Clark, take on new questions concerning the significance and long-term impact of one of the greatest conflicts in 20th-century Europe.

This third issue is devoted to the “second” anniversary being celebrated in this “extraordinary year” of European remembrance, which is the 25th anniversary of the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. The careful observer can see that the anniversary referred to above, at least in Western Europe, has been pushed into the background by the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. However, the year of 1989, while symbolizing events less dramatic, bloody and harrowing as those of 1914, would seem to be of similar significance in terms of periodization of European history. In fact, a number of historians subscribe to the belief articulated by Eric Hobsbawm that 1914 marked the beginning of “the short 20th century”, which symbolically ended in 1989. In light of recent events in the eastern part of Europe, I would like to express my wish that Hobsbawm be proven correct in his belief that “the age of extremes” has come to a close.