The Memory of Europe’s Age of Catastrophe, 1914–2014

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Mercer
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Cultural Struggle ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

The enormous death toll of the twentieth-century world wars created a cultural struggle over their meaning. States, institutions, and individuals developed conflicting memories, which shifted with the political trends of the post-war eras. After the First World War nationalist narratives promoted by states did not automatically win unanimous adherence, but the apparently apolitical language of loss and mourning was most successful where the war was least controversial or where national narratives were unavailable. While memory of the Second World War and the Holocaust has often been discussed in terms of forgetting, there was no amnesia but rather a selective appropriation of the past. Myths of victimhood and resistance proved popular across Europe and persisted despite periodic engagements with the past. Germany’s acknowledgement of the Nazi past is the most thorough, while most Europeans states now more easily remember the Second World War than their colonial heritage.

Western Ethnic Borderlands in the Influence of Russian-Soviet Propagangda Before and in the Years of the Second World War

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (46) ◽  
pp. 32-39
Author(s):  
Igor Lyubchyk
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Russian Orthodoxy ◽  
The Social ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World ◽  
Russian Identity

The research issue peculiarities of wide Russian propaganda among the most Western ethnographic group – Lemkies is revealed in the article. The character and orientation of Russian and Soviet agitation through the social, religious and social movements aimed at supporting Russian identity in the region are traced. Tragic pages during the First World War were Thalrogian prisons for Lemkas, which actually swept Lemkivshchyna through Muscovophilian influences. Agitation for Russian Orthodoxy has provoked frequent cases of sharp conflicts between Lemkas. In general, attempts by moskvophile agitators to impose russian identity on the Orthodox rite were failed. Taking advantage of the complex socio-economic situation of Lemkos, Russian campaigners began to promote moving to the USSR. Another stage of Russian propaganda among Lemkos began with the onset of the Second World War. Throughout the territory of the Galician Lemkivshchyna, Soviet propaganda for resettlement to the USSR began rather quickly. During the dramatic events of the Second World War and the post-war period, despite the outbreaks of the liberation movement, among the Lemkoswere manifestations of political sympathies oriented toward the USSR. Keywords: borderlands, Lemkivshchyna, Lemky, Lemkivsky schism, Moskvophile, Orthodoxy, agitation, ethnopolitics

“Product Not Available in Pre-War Quantities – but Quality Remains the Same”: Remarks on Advertisements as Historical Sources

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
The Past ◽  
German Press ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

The article focuses on advertisements as visual and historical sources. The material comes from the German press that appeared immediately after the end of the Second World War. During this time, all kinds of products were scarce. In comparison to this, colorful advertisements of luxury products are more than noteworthy. What do these images tell us about the early post-war years in Germany? The author argues that advertisements are a medium that shapes social norms. Rather than reflecting the historical realities, advertisements construct them. From an aesthetical and cultural point of view, advertisements gave thus a sense of continuity between the pre- and post-war years. The author suggests, therefore, that the advertisements should not be treated as a source for economic history. They are, however, important for studying social developments that occurred in the past.

The Belgian national past: Between commemoration and silence

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Rosoux ◽  
Laurence van Ypersele
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Other ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The One ◽  
Memory Conflicts ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

This article examines the gradual deconstruction of the Belgian national identity. Is it possible to speak of a de facto differentiation or even ‘federalization’ of the so-called ‘national past’ in Belgium? How do Belgians choose to remember and forget this past? To contribute to an understanding of these issues, the article considers two very different episodes of Belgian history, namely the First World War and the colonization of the Congo. On the one hand, the memory of the First World War appears to provide the template for memory conflicts in Belgium, and thus informs the memories of other tragedies such as the Second World War. On the other hand, the memory of the colonial past remains much more consensual – providing a more nuanced picture of competing views on the past. Beyond the differences between the ways in which these episodes are officially portrayed, the same fundamental trend may be observed: the gradual fragmentation of a supposedly smooth and reliable national version of history.

Żydzi

1999 ◽  
pp. 339-340
Author(s):  
Jerzy Tomaszewski
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Important Group ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Polish Society ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

This chapter considers a series of books, A to Polska właśnie (This is Indeed Poland). These books introduce their readers to various issues of interest to anyone studying Polish society. The chapter focuses on the volume Żydzi (The Jews), in particular, as it is the first to discuss an important group among Poland's population. The volume covers the period up to the second half of the eighteenth century, political and social problems from the second half of the eighteenth century until the end of the nineteenth, Jewish culture and religion in the nineteenth century, the period from the First World War until 1939, the Holocaust, and Jews in Poland after the Second World War. The chapter contends that this book should be regarded not as just one more study about Polish Jews, but as making a singular contribution to the promotion of knowledge about Jewish traditions, culture, and history in Poland.

5. Understanding recent trends in crime

2018 ◽  
pp. 52-63
Author(s):  
Tim Newburn
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Crime Trends ◽  
World War ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
The Past ◽  
Victimization Surveys ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World ◽  
Western Democracies

What is happening to crime? Are things getting better or worse, and in what ways? ‘Understanding recent trends in crime’ examines recorded crime trends and data from victimization surveys from America, Canada, England and Wales, and Australia. All four Western democracies display similar patterns: rising crime in the post-war years, hitting a peak somewhere between the late 1980s and late 1990s, then falling steeply for the fifteen‒twenty-five years since. This leaves two big questions: why did crime increase in the early decades after the Second World War; and, why has it been declining in the past fifteen‒twenty-five years? The reasons for the post-war crime explosion are discussed.

RECEPCIJA I REPREZENTACIJA HOLOKAUSTA U ISTOČNOM BERLINU I BEOGRADU NAKON DRUGOG SVETSKOG RATA

Lipar ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (75) ◽  
pp. 163-186
Author(s):  
Milena Nešić Pavković ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Third Reich ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Post War ◽  
Communist Countries ◽  
Second World

The goal of this paper is to investigate the memory of the Holocaust, i.e. the reception and representation of the suffering of the Jewish population during the rule of the Third Reich (under Nazi rule and occupation) in the capitals of the states constituted after the Second World War - in East Berlin, GDR, and Belgrade, SFRY, during the period from 1945 to 1989/1991. Relying on the achievements of memory studies and analyzing the political moods of that time and the ways of constructing official narratives about Jewish suffering in selected post-war Communist countries, the similarities and differences in the policy of representing Jewish suffering in these two countries and the memory of Jewish victims in places of remembrance and in the practices of remembrance in their capitals will be pointed out.

The hope and faith of Armistice Day during the Second World War: remembering the lost generation

2019 ◽  
Vol 92 (258) ◽  
pp. 790-813
Author(s):  
Samuel Tranter
Keyword(s):  
International Conflict ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Lost Generation ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

Abstract Although the First World War did not fundamentally alter the British population, casualty figures were sufficiently large to engender post-war ideas about a lost generation. Closely linked to this popular myth was the commemorative ritual of Armistice Day. Using radio broadcasts, newsreels, Mass Observation reports and newspapers, this article provides a detailed examination of the language surrounding Armistice Day during the Second World War, revealing how it was used not only to frame loss but also to understand and explain the renewal of international conflict at a time when it is frequently assumed that commemoration ground to a halt.

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.

scholarly journals The Serbian heritage of the Great War in Greece

Balcanica ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 189-204
Author(s):  
Vlasis Vlasidis
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World ◽  
Of Greece ◽  
Different Parts

During the First World War Serbian soldiers were encamped or fought in different parts of Greece. Many of them died there of diseases or exhaustion or were killed in battle. This paper looks at the issue of cemeteries of and memorials to the dead Serbian soldiers (primarily in the area of Corfu, Thessaloniki and Florina) in the context of post-war relations between Greece and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia), at the attitude of post-Second World War Yugoslavia towards them, and the Serbs? revived interest in their First World War history. It also takes a look at the image of Serbs in the memory of local people.

scholarly journals Discourse of the postgeneration: Remembrance and identity of the descendants of the perpetrators and the victims of the holocaust

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 78-90
Author(s):  
Julija Matejic
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Temporal Distance ◽  
World War ◽  
Professional Literature ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Family ◽  
Perpetrators And Victims ◽  
Second World

By analyzing the role of the family in the process of inter/transgenerational inheritance of trauma and memory (remembrance), the paper is an attempt at providing an answer to how the un-experienced past affects the lives of the descendants of the direct perpetrators and victims of the Holocaust, or rather, how it affects the identity forming of the so-called postgeneration. As the temporal distance from the Second World War increases, and as the number of those with immediate experiences and memories decreases, the expressions like memory and remembrance begin to lose their conventional meaning. As the research shows, even with the lack of first-hand experience, the descendents of those who survived mass traumatic events are subjectively deeply attached to the memory of the previous generation (so much so that they label that attachment as remembrance, and they feel their parents? traumas as their own). Given the fact that it is not possible to physically transfer the trauma and memory to descendants, the paper analyzes and compares the terminology that the professional literature has adopted so far, i.e. secondary traumatization (in case of a child), tertian traumatization (in case of a grandchild), as well as echoes of the trauma and postmemory. The main thesis of this paper is that echoes of the memory and echoes of the trauma cause the so-called identity crisis of the Holocaust postgeneration, that is, only facing the past leads to postgeneration?s coming to terms with it.

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