Collective Memories in War

Elena Rozhdestvenskaya, Victoria Semenova, Irina Tartakovskaya, Krzysztof Kosela

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138935488
• eBook ISBN: 9781317388067
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Sociologie

This edited collection offers an empirical exploration of social memory in the context of politics, war, identity and culture. With a substantive focus on Eastern Europe, it employs the methodologies of visual studies, content and discourse analysis, in-depth interviews and surveys to substantiate how memory narratives are composed and rewritten in changing ideological and political contexts. The book examines various historical events, including the Russian-Afghan war of 1979-89 and World War II, and considers public and local rituals, monuments and museums, textbook accounts, gender and the body. As such it provides a rich picture of post-socialist memory construction and function based in interdisciplinary memory studies.

1Policy of history and memory in different socio-cultural contexts

1 The politics of history in Poland and Germany ¹

DOI: 10.4324/9781315677408-2

Michał Łuczewski

Paulina Bednarz-Łuczewska

Tomasz Maślanka

Introduction

For the purpose of this chapter, we conceive the politics of history – as opposed to the culture of remembrance – as a top-down, state-led practice, the aim of which is to construct, spread and inculcate images of the past (Łuczewski and Bednarz-Łuczewska 2011a: 10; see also Assmann 1999, 2006: 273–274; Nijakowski 2008: 41). Thus understood, all actions taken by the state in order to establish a certain interpretation of history belong to the realm of the politics of history. Practices that fit this definition most usually: (1) select real and imagined historical facts; (2) diminish or silence some facts while highlighting or inventing others; (3) construct or deconstruct relations within in-groups as well as relations with out-groups; and, finally, formulate claims about (4) the context and direct causes of historical events or (5) their consequences.

To trace the differences between Polish and German politics of history after 1989, we focus on state-led sites of memory (SOMs), which are the most important instruments of the politics of history. We are interested in specific material locations – such as museums, memorials or monuments – which stage the past in concrete space. SOMs in this sense should not be confused with ‘realms of memory’ as defined by Nora (1989), François and Schulze (2002) and Hahn and Traba (2011). Looking for a feasible comparative perspective, we draw on the theory of social movements (Łuczewski 2012), which allows us to analyse SOMs as places of social mobilization (Łuczewski and Bednarz-Łuczewska 2011a, 2011b, 2011c). Indeed, as intended by the state, their goal is to realize the politics of history – that is, construct, spread and inculcate images of the past among the people. In so doing, SOMs realize the following claims:

1. identity claims – that is, SOMs construct certain social identities by asserting their existence and telling stories about them;
2. standing claims, – that is, SOMs relate constructed identities to other constructed identities; and
3. programme claims – that is, SOMs formulate goals that should be pursued and achieved (Tilly 2004: 184).

Politics of history after 1989 ²

German politics of history gained substantial momentum after reunification in the 1990s with the establishment of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives (BStU, Gauck Office) as well as two study commissions (1992–1994 and 1995–1998) for Working Through the History and the Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in Germany (Die Enquete-Kommission des 12. Deutschen Bundestages ‘Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland’), which investigated human rights violations in East Germany between 1949 and 1989. Upon publishing multi-volume documentation collections, the commissions recommended the institutionalization of remembrance by, among other things, constructing SOMs devoted to bringing the abuses of the SED dictatorship to light. It should be noted, however, that well before those conclusions were put into print, important SOMs revealing Communist crimes had been constructed (e.g. the Villa ten Hompel, Runde Ecke and the Stasi Museum).

However, it seems that the most important SOM was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin (2005), which is rightly considered to be an exemplar of modern German politics of history (Wolffsohn and Brechenmacher 2005; Leggewie and Meyer 2005). Michael Wolffsohn posits that the Holocaust Memorial was the crowning moment in the politics of history. It was inaugurated by the Warschauer Kniefall (Warsaw Genuflection) of Willy Brandt, who, on 7 December 1970, commemorated the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto murdered by Germans. The pinnacle of the politics of coming to terms with the Nazi past was arguably the Topography of Terror (2010), which was founded on the site of the SS and Gestapo headquarters.

Of course, the Topography of Terror is not the last word in German politics of history, as existing SOMs are reconstructed (Landsberg) and new SOMs are built. One of the most important of these is the Documentation Centre in Munich, which is devoted to the history of the Nazis in the capital of Bavaria ‘where all it started’. Furthermore, it seems that with the Visible Sign (2015), which will commemorate the 60–80 million Europeans (including Germans) who were expelled by the Nazis, a new vista of the German politics of history will open up.

In comparison with Germany, there has been an approximately 15-year delay in constructing SOMs in Poland. Why is this so? It seems that this striking difference can be explained by comparing post-Communist Poland, not so much with the DDR after reunification, but with the post-Nazi BRD. There are important analogies between first two decades after the Second World War in West Germany and the first two decades after the collapse of Communism in Poland. Specifically, we can find the same crucial elements of the politics of history: (1) repression of the dictatorial past; (2) the demonization of Communism; and (3) integration with the West and Europe.

Let us focus on goals (1) and (2), which, on the face of it, might appear as mutually exclusive. The post-Solidarity elites of the Third Polish Republic claimed that because totalitarianism had been destroyed, there was no need to persecute its officials and accomplices. The past was cordoned off with a ‘thick line’ (Śpiewak 2005: 49, 112). On the other hand, the meaning of Communism also changed. It became associated not with the political system itself, but with a mentality. Thus decommunization was not about eliminating former Communists and their accomplices from political life, but rather about transforming human souls – that is, the transformation of homini sovietici into democratic citizens (Śpiewak 2005: 121). Further conceptual change consisted in correlating Communism with advocates of decommunization and lustration, who purportedly were encumbered with the mentality of the Soviet past – that is, a mentality fraught with vengeance, violence and resorting to Bolshevik methods, and using materials gathered by the secret service (Śpiewak 2005: 112). Communism, then, was still the greatest enemy of Polish democracy, but its meaning was completely reversed. It was the anti-Communists who were, in this view, the true inheritors of the dictatorship. In order to Westernize and Europeanize, Poles were told to forget about the divisive issues of the past. As a consequence, the Polish politics of history became exclusively present- and future-oriented.

There are further striking parallels between post-Nazi Germany and post-Communist Poland. The source of legitimacy for the state consisted of a successful political transition, a robust economy (known in Germany as Wirtschaftswunder), which survived the financial crisis, and liberal-democratic values enshrined in the constitution (Verfasssungspatriotismus). Ideally, under such arrangements, nationalism and religion should be replaced with civil society as the most important source of identification and legitimation (Śpiewak 2005). Under these circumstances, political history and modern history became divisive and thus silenced. In the new Polish school curricula, history was so marginalized that former members of the anti-Communist opposition went on hunger strike in protest. As a consequence, just as German conservatives criticized the ‘loss of history’, so did Polish conservatives (Cichocki 2005; Nijakowski 2008; Wolff-Powęska 2007).

Unlike in Germany, the democratic breakthrough did not bring about the construction of SOMs. The important commemorative institutions that were established (i.e. the KARTA Centre) were not state-led and top-down, but society-driven and bottom-up. The first sign of change in the course of the Polish politics of history came almost ten years after the establishment of the Gauck Office with the establishment of the Institute of National Remembrance, whose goal was opening secret service archives, lustrating individuals who ran for public office, prosecuting Communist and Nazi crimes, and promoting education and scientific research. Finally, around 2004, the ‘politics of history’ became a political slogan and entered the public sphere. It was due to the fact that it became one of the mobilizing concepts of conservative proponents of the Fourth Republic who, at the same time, were staunch critics of the Third Republic established after 1989. The most important public presentation of this project was organized in 2004 by the newly founded Warsaw Uprising Museum. In an introduction to the proceedings of the conference, Gawin and Kowal (2005), who stood behind the project of the Warsaw Uprising Museum, called for a ‘Polish politics of history’ that would run counter to the focus on the economy and transformation, which are characteristic, they claimed, of the Third Republic. According to another vocal representative of that circle, Marek Cichocki, after 1989 the Polish state lamentably showed a merely aesthetic approach towards the past and it was high time for a politics of history that would strengthen political community Cichocki (2005).

The Warsaw Uprising Museum became a flagship project of the new Polish politics of history, which garnered vast political support for Lech Kaczyński and his Law and Justice Party. After this party won the elections in 2005, the construction of SOMs gained momentum, the most important among them being the European Solidarity Centre, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, the Polish History Museum and the Museum of the Western Territories in Wrocław. In 2007, the new government, even though voicing its objections to the politics of history, continued all the projects apart from the Museum of the Western Territories. New SOMs have since been constructed – such as the Museum of the Second World War and the Pilsudski Museum – and there has been a reconstruction of the Polish Army Museum. Interestingly, a Museum of Communism, or a Museum of Communist Crimes, have so far both remained only ideas.

Identity claims

Let us now compare Polish and German politics of history with respect to the identities they represent. As Tilly (2005) has argued, one of the defining elements of identity-building is telling stories about it. Those stories might be more or less mobilizing; they always take the shape of so-called ‘WUNC displays’ by representing a given group as Worthy, United, Numerous and Committed.

In Polish SOMs, we are dealing, for the most part, with a full WUNC agenda. Poles are usually depicted as deeply religious (the Warsaw Uprising Museum and the Centre for the Thought of John Paul II), the enemies of two totalitarianisms who fought for their freedom (the Warsaw Uprising Museum, the Polish History Museum, the Museum of Communism and the European Solidarity Centre). Interestingly, and contrary to common prejudices, Poles are not represented as victims – wherever they are, images of defencelessness are complemented by images of active resistance (e.g. the Warsaw Uprising Museum).

The full WUNC formula of German identity is only fulfilled by the Visible Sign. The expelled Germans are presented as worthy, united, numerous and (from today’s perspective) committed against violence, in favour of human rights, including the right to Heimat. Other than this example, the narratives constructed by the German SOMs step away from the WUNC formula. Furthermore, instead of one dominant pattern, we have three different patterns. First, there is the WUN formula, except that – in contrast to Poland – it refers not to the in-group, but an out-group: the Jews. However, they are not represented as an active group (WUNC), but as defenceless victims (WUN). Second, as a mirror image of the WUN pattern related to the Jews, there is a non-W formula for the Germans themselves, functioning in two different forms: Germans as Nazis (Landsberg, the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism, Munster, Zug der Erinnerung and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe) and Germans as Communists (Runde Ecke, the Stasi Museum and the Topography of Terror). The two roles may also be combined (Buchenwald). Third, the WUC formula, occasionally completed with an N, refers to the opposition against the Nazis (Villa ten Hompel) and against Communism (Runde Ecke and the Stasi Museum).

Standing claims

Let us now focus on constructed relations within as well as between identities. Although Polish SOMs take into consideration German identity (the Warsaw Uprising Museum, the Second World War Museum and the Polish History Museum), it seems that the German politics of memory leave the Polish perspectives outside its scope. There is no German SOM intended to commemorate the Poles. This may be understood as an effect of either a negative atmosphere for this sort of initiative, or a lack of such an initiative. German politics of memory focus on Jewish victims, followed by the Roma and homosexuals, whereas other groups, such as Poles, Belarusians and Ukrainians have not so far been included.

Although the histories of Poland and Germany are different, the tendency to include the Jewish perspective is gaining in significance in both countries. The Germans, recognizing their perpetrator role, commemorate their victims. The Poles, victims of the Nazi policy, commemorate other ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Table Of Contents
• Collective Memories in War
• 1 Policy of history and memory in different socio-cultural contexts
• 2 Cultural memory through school textbooks
• 3 Memory representations in social space
• 4 Narrating memory
• 5 Memory and gender
• Index