scholarly journals The white and red forces of the Civil War: problems of modern public interpretation of historical memory in Finland

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-77
Author(s):  
E. A. Kuzmenko
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Historical Trauma ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
The Public ◽  
Historic Memory ◽  
Winter War ◽  
The Impact

The article characterizes the modern public discourse in Finland on the impact of the red and white forces on the developments unfolding in the course of the Civil War through the interpretation of historical sources. It also draws a conclusion about the transformations that historical memory has experienced in Finland over the past decades. The research tasks are solved by using the methodology of historical trauma and mechanisms of its overcoming, the historical narration of everyday life, sociological methods. The article considers the concepts of official scientific and public discourse on controversial historical issues, indicates the different functional content of these categories. The fact of granting independence to Finland in 1918, and most importantly, the fact that the independence was maintained further on, was actualized in the public narrative in 2018. On this basis, it is possible to analyze the assessment of the white and red forces within modern Finnish society, due to the higher interest to the Civil War in connection with the Jubilee data and comparatively larger number of sources on historic memory that have appeared in scientific discourse. In the interwar period, Finland saw the cult of the Civil (“Liberation”) War, where the red forces were presented as opponents of the independence of the state, and the whites, on the contrary, contributed to the acquisition of the sovereignty. However the statistical data, commemorative products, cultural phenomena presented in the article show that the public discourse about the Civil War tends to smooth the categorical evaluations, despite the fact that the discourse about the further Winter War and, moreover, the World War II tends to exacerbate the approach. The Finnish society is aware of the need to investigate crimes against the reds, preserves the memory of war crimes on both sides, and keeps the war graves of both Reds and Whites in the similar way. The rethinking of the legacy of civil confrontation is the potential for humanitarian dialogue between Russia and Finland.

scholarly journals The 100th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution of 1917 – the Historical Memory Formation in Contemporary Situation

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-23
Author(s):  
Elena V. Kucheryavaya
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
100Th Anniversary ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Science Centre ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact ◽  
International Research Project

The article presents selected outcomes of the international research project “From the Enemy of the People to New Martyr”, investigating the memory of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and of the Great Terror, and its place in contemporary discourse in Russia. The research is sponsored by the Polish National Science Centre and is conducted at the Maria Grzegorzewska Pedagogical University in Warsaw (2017-2020 years). The one of the project’s stages was the investigation of shaping the historical memory by authorities in contemporary Russia, conducted with using research method of discourse analysis in 2017 year. The results of the analysis of the public discourse demonstrate how the perception of the Revolution of 1917 changes in Russia nowadays, and how in the year of the 100th anniversary new understanding of the historical events are being shaped. It also demonstrates the impact of the contemporary political situation on the creation of new discourse about Revolution.

scholarly journals Rethinking the Traumatic Memory of the Holocaust in Literature (Based on Monika Schneiderman’s Work “Fałszerze pieprzu. Historia rodzinna”)

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (45) ◽  
pp. 170-180
Author(s):  
Uliana Yevchuk
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Traumatic Memory ◽  
The Novel ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of

The article analyzes the attempt to reconstruct the historical memory of the Holocaust in the novel by Polish writer Monika Schneiderman “Fałszerze pieprzu. Historia rodzinna”. The writer questions the issue of Polish-Jewish relations, the responsibility and guilt of Holocaust witnesses to its victims. The author, who has a complex identity, seeks to find out for herself why her Polish family did not show enough sympathy for the suffering of Jews during World War II, including her Jewish relatives. As such indifference on the part of Poles to Holocaust victims was quite common, Monica Schneiderman tries to explain this by examining the relations between societies who lived side by side for centuries in the pre-war period, concluding that the two neighbouring nations lived in separate communities that were not open to each other. Based on the reproduction of the history of her own family, the author seeks answers to difficult questions of universal human values – perception and understanding of others, empathy, compassion. In her works Monica Schneiderman shows the need to include these recently “closed” but extremely important topics in the public discourse.

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.

The Roots of Global Health Inequity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joia S. Mukherjee
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Primary Health Care ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Primary Health ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

This chapter outlines the historical roots of health inequities. It focuses on the African continent, where life expectancy is the shortest and health systems are weakest. The chapter describes the impoverishment of countries by colonial powers, the development of the global human rights framework in the post-World War II era, the impact of the Cold War on African liberation struggles, and the challenges faced by newly liberated African governments to deliver health care through the public sector. The influence of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund’s neoliberal economic policies is also discussed. The chapter highlights the shift from the aspiration of “health for all” voiced at the Alma Ata Conference on Primary Health Care in 1978, to the more narrowly defined “selective primary health care.” Finally, the chapter explains the challenges inherent in financing health in impoverished countries and how user fees became standard practice.

The Black British and Irish Press

2020 ◽  
pp. 396-413
Author(s):  
Olive Vassell
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
British Society ◽  
The Public ◽  
Black British ◽  
Mass Migration ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Press ◽  
Definition Of

The black British press has since its inception in 1900 been rooted in several connected struggles. They are: the push for African and Caribbean independence, and the creation of a collective cultural and political black identity based in African roots; the formation of community and belonging for largely Caribbean immigrants following the post-World War II mass migration, and the reflection and reinforcement of identity for black British-born citizens outside of white political, social, economic and cultural hegemony. However, it has not only played a pivotal role in addressing issues of liberation and community building, but also in helping to define the public discourse surrounding the definition of what it means to be both black and British, not just for blacks, but for the entire British society. This chapter examines the history of black British newspapers and periodicals through these three distinct periods of social change and the critical role they have played in each of them.

scholarly journals Unrecovered objects: Narratives of dispossession, slow violence and survival in the investigation of mass graves from the Spanish Civil War

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 428-446
Author(s):  
Layla Renshaw
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Mass Grave ◽  
Mass Graves ◽  
Pressure Groups ◽  
Slow Violence ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact

The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) was triggered by a military uprising against the democratically elected Popular Front government. Away from the battlefield, this war was characterized by the politically-motivated murder of thousands of civilians, many of whom were buried in clandestine graves throughout Spain. Following Franco’s victory and subsequent dictatorship, there were strong prohibitions on commemorating the Republican dead. A radical rupture in Spain’s memory politics occurred from 2000 onwards with the founding of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory and other similar pressure groups that have organized the exhumation and reburial of the Republican dead. This article is based on fieldwork conducted in communities in Castile and León, and Extremadura as they underwent mass grave investigations. It examines the experience of theft and dispossession that occurred as part of the Francoist repression of Republicans. Accounts of these episodes focus on stolen and looted objects robbed from the dead during the killings, from the graves’ post-mortem, or from surviving relatives as part of the systematic dispossession of Republican households that occurred during the war and immediate post-war period. These narratives surface with frequency during the investigation and exhumation of mass graves. Despite the fact that many are lost forever, these stolen possessions can function as powerful mnemonic objects with a strong affective and imaginative hold. The narratives of dispossession explore themes of survival, the experiences of women and children, and the impact of slow violence. By invoking theft and stolen objects, these stories highlight forms of trauma and forms of memory that may not be represented fully by the dominant investigative paradigm of the mass grave exhumation with its inherent focus on death, cataclysmic violence and the tangible, physical traces of the past.

scholarly journals Does really no one care? Analyzing the public engagement of communication scientists on Twitter

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Jünger ◽  
Birte Fähnrich
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
Large Share ◽  
Scholarly Community ◽  
The Public ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Twitter Activity ◽  
The Impact

Recent publications question the public visibility of communication science as a discipline and its relevance for the broader society. To address this issue, we analyze the public engagement of communication scientists by using the example of their Twitter activity. We theoretically distinguish eight types of engagement and explore their empirical prevalence. The results show that a large share of communication is between peers, fulfilling social networking functions. Nevertheless, more than a quarter of the tweets are on political and social topics. In this way, communication scientists bring society into their scholarly community and thus act as bridge builders. They also reach diverse publics outside of science, such as followers from the field of economics. Our study thus highlights the diversity of connections between science and society and can offer a starting point to further research other fields of public engagement and the impact of the discipline on the public discourse.

Where Has Marxism Gone? Gauging the Impact of Alternative Ideas in Transition Bulgaria

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgy Ganev
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
First Century ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
The Public ◽  
Labor Theory Of Value ◽  
Labor Theory ◽  
Dominant Set ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Post Communism ◽  
The Impact

Marxism dominated in Bulgaria for more than forty years until 1989 and then completely vanished from the public discourse within several years. Where has it gone? The present article addresses this question by noting that even if they are out of the public discourse, remnants of the previously dominant set of ideas should still be found in people’s thinking. It illustrates this general argument by outlining how the survival into post-communism of a pillar of Marxist economic theory—the labor theory of value—can explain several significant discrepancies between facts and perceptions, called the “experience gap,” shown to exist in Bulgaria at the beginning of the twenty-first century. On the other side, the presence of the experience gap in Bulgaria is a factor influencing the availability and the choice of policy options. Thus, the Marxist labor theory of value continues to live in people’s minds and still shapes today’s Bulgarian reality.

scholarly journals Prophetic witness: An appropriate mode of public discourse in the democratic South Africa?

2010 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Etienne De Villiers
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Second Step ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Prophetic Witness ◽  
The Church

The question asked in the heading was answered in this article in four steps. In the first step, an attempt was made to find an accurate account of biblical prophecy by means of a critical discussion of certain influential interpretations of it. In the second step, the extent to which biblical prophecy could serve as a model for contemporary Christians was discussed and an acceptable Christian model of prophetic witness was formulated by drawing on the views of different authors. In the third step, the impact of democracy on the prophetic witness of the church was discussed. The Dutch theologian, Gerrit de Kruijf’s view that the public prophetic witness of the church is not appropriate in democratic societies was criticised and the legitimacy of certain forms of prophetic witness in such societies defended. In the final step, a number of examples of the prophetic witness that is needed in the present democratic South Africa were provided.

scholarly journals Antidote to Civil War? European ‘small states’ and political legitimacy during World War II

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-135
Author(s):  
Ioannis D. Stefanidis
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Transition Period ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Small States ◽  
World War ◽  
Foreign Occupation ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact

The experience of European small states involved in World War II varied widely. Not all of them entered the war as victims of aggression, and even those that did so did not necessarily share the same dire consequences of warfare and/or foreign occupation; they also exited the war in, sometimes dramatically different ways: a number of small states entered the post-war period relatively peacefully, other were plunged into civil war, while a third category experienced a measure of unrest short of civil strife. It is argued in this paper that, among the factors influencing the outcome of a European small state’s involvement in World War II, the political legitimacy of its government should not be underestimated. The impact of this factor was particularly felt during the sensitive transition period from war and/or occupation into peacetime. Reinterpreting existing material, it is further argued that, during the war, democratic legitimacy increasingly appeared to guarantee a safer ground for both withstanding wartime travails and achieving a relatively smooth restoration of free national institutions, without the risk of civil war.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document