scholarly journals Polish Cultural Diplomacy and Historical Memory: the Case of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
David Clarke ◽  
Paweł Duber
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Second World

Metamorphoses of memory of the the Russian-Serbian Brotherhood of War in Modern Serbia

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 142-156
Author(s):  
A. Yu. Timofeev
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Party System ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Second World

The article considers the perception of World War II in modern Serbian society. Despite the stability of Serbian-Russian shared historical memory, the attitudes of both countries towards World wars differ. There is a huge contrast in the perception of the First and Second World War in Russian and Serbian societies. For the Serbs the events of World War II are obscured by the memories of the Civil War, which broke out in the country immediately after the occupation in 1941 and continued several years after 1945. Over 70% of Yugoslavs killed during the Second World War were slaughtered by the citizens of former Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The terror unleashed by Tito in the first postwar decade in 1944-1954 was proportionally bloodier than Stalin repressions in the postwar USSR. The number of emigrants from Yugoslavia after the establishment of the Tito's dictatorship was proportionally equal to the number of refugees from Russia after the Civil War (1,5-2% of prewar population). In the post-war years, open manipulations with the obvious facts of World War II took place in Tito's Yugoslavia. In the 1990s the memories repressed during the communist years were set free and publicly debated. After the fall of the one-party system the memory of World War II was devalued. The memory of the Russian-Serbian military fraternity forged during the World War II began to revive in Serbia due to the foreign policy changes in 2008. In October 2008 the President of Russia paid a visit to Serbia which began the process of (re) construction of World War II in Serbian historical memory. According to the public opinion surveys, a positive attitude towards Russia and Russians in Serbia strengthens the memories on general resistance to Nazism with memories of fratricide during the civil conflict events of 1941-1945 still dominating in Serbian society.

A ‘Sound Investment’? British Cultural Diplomacy and Overseas Students: The British Council's Students Committee, 1935–1939

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-283
Author(s):  
Alice Byrne
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Overseas Students ◽  
British Council ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Run Up ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Second World

This article explores the UK government's first foray into cultural diplomacy by focusing on the activities of the British Council's Students Committee in the run-up to the Second World War. Students were placed at the heart of British cultural diplomacy, which drew on foreign models as well as the experience of intra-empire exchanges. While employing cultural internationalist discourse, the drive to attract more overseas students to the United Kingdom was intended to bring economic and political advantages to the host country. The British Council pursued its policy in cooperation with non-state actors but ultimately was guided by the Foreign Office, which led it to target key strategic regions, principally in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin.

scholarly journals Historical Memory of the Great Patriotic War as a Soft Power Resource of Modern Russia

2020 ◽  
pp. 41-45
Author(s):  
A.O. Naumov
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Brics Countries ◽  
Eurasian Economic Union ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

The article is devoted to the study of the role of historical memory of the Great Patriotic War as a resource of soft power of the Russian Federation. The research methods used are the method of historicism, institutional approach and comparative analysis. In this context, the countries that are members of the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan) and the BRICS (Russia, Brazil, India, China, South Africa) are considered as objects of implementation of the domestic soft power policy. The author reveals the awareness of the peoples of these states about the history of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War, the attitude of political elites to the events of 1939-1945, peculiarity of state politics of historical memory in relation to this global conflict. Based on this analysis, proposals are formulated to optimize the Russian strategy of soft power in the EEU and BRICS countries. The author concludes that the narrative of the Great Victory is potentially a very effective resource of modern Russia’s soft power.

scholarly journals FEATURES OF DEPICTION THE SECOND WORLD WAR EVENTS IN THE XXTH CENTURY RUSSIAN, AMERICAN AND HUNGARIAN PROSE (BASED ON THE NOVELS «LIFE AND FATE» BY VASILIY GROSSMAN, «FATELESSNESS» BY IMRE KERTÉSZ, «FROM HERE TO ETERNITY» BY JAMES JONES)

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 433-447
Author(s):  
Adalbert BARAN
Keyword(s):  
Historical Memory ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
James Jones ◽  
History Of ◽  
From Here To Eternity ◽  
Second World

The present article deals with the comparative analysis of the methodological bases of depicting the authenticity, features, and character of ideological-thematic reflection of the Second World War events on the pages of the novel by Russian writer Vasily Grossman (1905-1964) «Life and Fate» (1960), the masterpiece by the American novelist James Jones (1921-1977) «From here to eternity» (1953) and the work by the Hungarian novelist Imre Kertész (1929-2016) «Fatelessness» (1975). The novels' authors did not need to interpret historical events by other people's memories and strive for a documentary. The original document in the novels was the life and unique memory of the writers themselves, and not only in the sense of the artistic reproduction of the true sides of the survived and seen, but also in terms of serious thoughts about the relationship of the past with the present in their moral, social, philosophical and ethical aspects. The article highlights the events and circumstances that predetermined the formation of features of the writers' worldview and led to the writing of the novels on military topics. The novels «Life and Fate», «Fatelessness», and «From here to eternity» can be considered as deeply personal works by the writers who have not declared, magnified the events of the history in context, but through the image system of the novels deeply examined, analyzed their roots. The authors of the novels have shown the history of the 20th century not on the background of exaggerated, politically agitating, heroic pictures, but from the point of view of the true significance of historical events for modern society. Keywords: documentary, historical memory, regime, literary tradition, writer’s consciousness, historical concreteness.

scholarly journals The Role of Sources in Historical Memory: Evacuee Children of Second World War Britain

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Oeste
Keyword(s):  
Public Memory ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Second World ◽  
British Children

<p>Was the evacuation program for British children during the Second World War a success or a failure? This paper analyses how various types of sources, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, provide different answers to this question, and ultimately impact how the evacuations take shape in public memory.</p>

The War in the Historical Memory of Nations

2015 ◽  
pp. 65-76
Author(s):  
N. V. Pavlov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Important Work ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Gene Level ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
Second World

There is no doubt that the most important event of the 20th century was a joint victory of the united front of peoples and states over German fascism. For some that was the victory in the Second World War. For the Russians - the victory in the Great Patriotic War which cost the Soviet Union incredible efforts, enormous sacrifices and material losses. Now when we celebrate the 70thyear since that epoch-making date we turn our attention once more to the lessons of history because the memory of the war has been imprinted deeply on our gene level of Russians and Germans. This is because every family from both sides sustained heavy losses. This memory is alive in literature, in movies and plays, songs, in memorials, biographies and historical dates. The Russian and German descendants of those who fought against each other are doing an important work searching for the killed, looking after the burial places, compensating the damage to the victims of this inhuman massacre, trying to understand critically our common and controversial past. What was the 9th of May for the Germans and the Russians in the perception of Germans and Russians? Was it a victory, a defeat or liberation? This is what the author of the article reflects on, convinced that we are anyway dealing with the greatest event of the 20th century, at least because it prevented the end of civilization.

History, Myth, and Memory: A Biography of a Stalin Portrait

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-84
Author(s):  
Susan Corbesero
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Soviet Leader ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

AbstractDuring the troublous post-war and post-Soviet periods, the iconography of Stalin has served as a powerful interpreter of the past. Since World War II, portraits and attendant mass reproductions of the notorious Soviet leader have conveyed a historical memory that fused the triumphalist mythology of the Second World War and the cult of Stalin. Appropriated for political, national, nostalgic and commercial purposes, these iconic vehicles have functioned as integral “vectors of memory” in times of political change. In that vein, this article traces the remarkably dynamic and influential life of Aleksandr Laktionov's Portrait of I. V. Stalin (1949) in order to illuminate how its meaning and use, past and present, reflects and refracts the political landscape that deploys it.

Legalizing “Compensation” and the Spoils of War: The Russian Law on Displaced Cultural Valuables and the Manipulation of Historical Memory

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Kennedy Grimsted
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Wide Scale ◽  
Russian Law ◽  
Second World

AbstractThis article analyses the historical and political background of the Russian law on cultural property displaced to the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War (April 1998, with amendments in 2000). Following the 1990–1991 revelations about the extensive cultural treasures captured by Soviet authorities at the end of the Second World War, there was hope abroad for restitution, with a series of bilateral agreements with the countries of origin, but in spring 1994 the Duma blocked further restitution. We follow the fierce debates, the Constitutional Court ruling (1999), the amended law (July 2000), and its implementation under the Ministry of Culture.We show the wide-scale Russian support of the law, with its concept of “compensatory restitution” that virtually nationalizes the spoils of war, with only scant provisions for restitution to those who fought against the Nazi regime and those victimized by it. What explanation emerges involves the manipulation of historical memory by the Stalinist regime, as the cultural trophies assume symbolic importance in the “myth and memory” of “victory” in the Great Patriotic War. Restitution to legal owners is to be considered only in exchange for equally substantial compensation for wartime loss and suffering of the population at large.

scholarly journals Mirant al cel/Eyes on the Sky: The (Im)possible Expiation of the Spectral Other

Periphērica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-41
Author(s):  
Jaume Olivella
Keyword(s):  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
World War ◽  
National Allegory ◽  
The Family ◽  
Second World ◽  
Special Relevance

This article analyzes the contribution of the new Catalan documentary in the current process of reclaiming the collective historical memory repressed by Francoism and by the Silence Deal established during the political transition to democracy after Franco’s death. This analysis will consider some films that use the family metaphor as a national allegory to represent the plight of the Catalan nation. The main thesis of this study is to underline the need for reparation regarding the crimes committed by Francoism during and after the Spanish Civil War and the fact that such a reparation has not taken place neither in fiction nor in historical terms. This essay relies on the post-Derridian concept of “hauntology” as a theoretical framework to study the spectral textual encounters that mark the symptoms of an uninterrupted mourning process that appeals to the historical memory in search of dignity and closure. Methodologically, this study offers a close textual reading of Jesús Garay’s film Mirant al cel (Eyes on the Sky, 2008) as a perfect case study where the spectral conflict between victims and victimizers is acted out in the context of Barcelona and Catalonia and the series of urban mass bombings carried out by the Italian Royal Legion under the direct supervision of Il Duce, Mussolini. Garay’s film special relevance lies in the fact of its being one of the few documentaries that revisits those three dramatic days in March 1938 that became a tragic rehearsal of the massive urban aerial raids of the Second World War.

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