Память о Второй мировой войне: между прошлым и настоящим

Author(s): Petya B. Dimitrova / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1-2/2015

The article looks through the changes in the memory of the Second World War as part of the transformations in the ideas that were established after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the Marxist-Leninist ideology dominance in the East European countries. The author offers her version of the transformations in the memory of the Second World War, while analyzing the process of the Holocaust ideas’ establishment and the need for condemnation of all totalitarian regimes. According to her, two parallel processes take place in Europe after 1989 – the establishment of the Holocaust as a main event during the whole world war, going from West to East, and the enforcement of the view for similarity between the two totalitarian regimes – the National-Socialist and the Bolshevik, going in the opposite direction. The second process of European revisionism requires not only condemnation of the Communist crimes against humanity in a way similar to the condemnation of the Nazi crimes through the Nurnberg tribunal, but also a full revision of the views on the reasons, the driving forces and the results of the Second World War. In such way, the confrontations between Russia and the West nowadays, related mostly to the accession of Crimea and the war activities in Ukraine, also have their impact on the past: 70 years after its end, the war is starting to look more and more not like a collision between the anti-Hitler coalition and the Axis powers, but like a fight between two totalitarian regimes, in which, for one reason or another, most of the then existing countries were included.

Inszenierte Gegenmacht von Rechts. Die Legion “Erzengel Michael” in Rumänien 1918–1938. Hrsg. Armin Heinen, Oliver Jens Schmitt. Oldenbourg Verlag, München, 2013 (= Südosteuropäische Arbeiten 150), 400 S., Abbildungen, Grafiken und Karten

Author(s): Nikolay Poppetrov / Language(s): German Issue: 3-4/2016

Book review

Еврейският въпрос в националсоциалистическа Германия

Author(s): Valentin Spiridonov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2013

Demeter, Gábor. Diplomatic Struggle for Supremacy over the Balkan Peninsula, 1878–1914. Collected Studies. Publications of the Bulgarian-Hungarian History Commission. Sofia, 2017. 159 p.

Author(s): Penka Peykovska / Language(s): English Issue: 3-4/2017

Book review

The Historical Bulgarian Studies Abroad: a Glimpse into Their Past and Present

Author(s): Blagovest Nyagulov / Language(s): English Issue: 3-4/2018

The article aims to present in broad outlines and to make some remarks on the main aspects of the past and above all the present of the historical Bulgarian studies abroad or the study, teaching and popularizing of Bulgarian history abroad. Besides publications on the topic, the author has used the archival fund of the Center for Bulgarian Studies, which is stored in the Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, information from websites and his personal observations. The stimulated and controlled upsurge of Bulgarian studies abroad during the period of socialism and its decline in the conditions of democratization is explained primarily by the direct connection between the Bulgarian state policy, on the one hand, and the Bulgarian studies, on the other. The topic of the historical Bulgarian studies abroad poses the question of the boundaries in the research on Bulgarian history. The boundaries imposed between the states by big politics, but also those established by the various professional and personal backgrounds and realizations of the historians, has resulted in a multitude of historical interpretations of the past. Therefore, the question of whether a history “without borders” is possible cannot get a positive answer. The common subjects and topics of research connect historians abroad and those in Bulgaria, and entail the need for their better mutual information and communication. The “external” viewpoints of the past sometimes confirm the “inner” ones, but in other cases they offer important correctives, such as: rethinking of the “closed” national visions of Bulgarian history; its more successful inclusion into the regional and world historical processes; enhancing the links of history with other sciences and the interdisciplinarity of research.

Studies on Contemporary History: the Bulgarian Case

Author(s): Iliyana Marcheva / Language(s): English Issue: 3-4/2018

The text problematizes the interpretations of contemporary history in the context of the world historiography as well as Bulgarian historiography. Special attention is paid to the conception of contemporary history during socialist times in Bulgaria. Back then contemporary history was associated with the Bulgarian Communist Party coming in power and ruling. Most historians examined the early period of socialist epoque during 1944–1948 and until 1958 as to avoid the obligatory glorification of the BCP and its government. Those who studied the period after 1958 were the party historians in the university ideological departments and in the Institute of BCP history. After the collapse of state socialism contemporary history included the whole socialist period. It was examined by state institutions and NGO on the rich archives base and from the point of view of liberal democracy. Now historians tend to avoid studying the transition period 1989–2007 because of the lacking temporary distance and accessible archives. It became the object of political science, sociology, economy and anthropology. A huge amount of such literature was accumulated from 1989 until 2017 and was classified in Catalog of the Literature of the Bulgarian Transition (1989–2007) that can be found in the site of the Institute for Historical Studies. The text analyses 1281 pieces of work of this Catalog thus arguing that history of the transition obtains a solid base to become already the object of the historical science.

Срђан Мићић. Краљевина Југославија и Аншлус Аустрије 1938 године. Службени гласник. Београд, 2010. 315 с.

Author(s): Dimitar Mitev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2019

Book Review

A Dangerous Nexus? History, Ideology and the Structure of the Contemporary Chetnik Movement

Author(s): Nejra Veljan,Maida Ćehajić / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

During the Yugoslav era (1945–1992), the Serb ethno-nationalist Chetnik movement and its motivating ideology were unambiguously condemned in public discourse. This followed the defeat of foreign occupiers, including Italian fascists and German Nazis, who had been aided by collaborationists within Ustasha (Croat ethno-nationalist and fascist) and Chetnik ranks. Thus, in the period after World War Two, public accusations of Chetnik membership were levelled pejoratively in Yugoslavia, and it was clear: to be a Chetnik was to be a traitor. Many former members of Chetnik detachments tried to conceal or minimize their participation in the movement, but some continued fostering Chetnik ideals in the privacy of their homes, even as a shared Partisan/Yugoslav identity was publicly nourished.

A BOOK REVIEW OF POTRIANONSKÉ KOŠICE

Author(s): Dana Kušnírová / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

Review of: FICERI, Ondrej. Potrianonské Košice. Premeny etnických identít obyvateľov Košíc v medzivojnovom Československu [Košice Post-Trianon. Ethnic Identity Changes of Inhabitants of Košice in Interwar Czechoslovakia]. Bratislava: VEDA, Vydavateľstvo SAV, 2019, 336 pp. ISBN 978-80-224-1737-2

Македонский вопрос в творчестве П. Н. Милюкова

Author(s): Rumyana Andreeva / Language(s): Russian Issue: 3-4/2000

Коста Ст. Павлович. Дневник 1930–1932. Съставители: Сърджан Мичич и Наташа Миличевич. Белград, 2020. 570 стр.

Author(s): Dimitar Mitev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2021

Book review

The “Revival Process” in Bulgaria and the Soviet Participation – Myths and Realities

Author(s): Evgenia Kalinova / Language(s): English Issue: 1-2/2021

The article presents the results of a documentary study of the Soviet Union’s attitude to the assimilation policy of the communist regime in Bulgaria towards the Bulgarian Turks in the period 1984–1989 and Moscow’s behavior in connection with the crisis in Bulgarian-Turkish relations. On the basis of the available archival documents, an answer is sought to the question of whether the “revival process” was inspired by the Soviet Union or whether it is just about another persistent myth in the public sphere.

Polityczne uwarunkowania powrotu Polski nad Bałtyk w latach 1918–1920 w podręcznikach do nauczania historii

Author(s): Marek Białokur / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2021

The year 2020 saw the centenary of the return of Pomerania to Poland, which regained access to the Baltic Sea. This event, along with many other issues connected with the establishment of the Polish state after the First World War, has been the subject of historians’ research for years. This also applies to history educators who analyse the contents of school textbooks. The author of this article, which is consistent with this research trend, decided to analyse dozens of the most popular textbooks for teaching history in secondary schools used by Polish pupils over the past 30 years, i.e. in the period from 1990 to 2020. The article primarily uses the philological and comparative methods. The undertaken analysis helped to distinguish from the school textbooks three main threads concerning Poland’s return to the Baltic Sea, namely the speech by the President of the United States Thomas Woodrow Wilson of 8 January 1918, the resolutions of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Poland’s Wedding to the Sea of February 1920. As a result, it has been shown that these issues have an adequate place in textbooks, as far as it was required by curricula for teaching history in the 1990s, as well as the later reformed curricula created during the first two decades of the present century. This results from the fact that practically all analysed textbooks provide basic facts concerning the circumstances of the retaking of part of Pomerania by the Republic of Poland after the end of the First World War, which are presented with a short commentary and sometimes with additional content for learning, and with particular consideration of international conditions of this process. What should be noted in the analysed textbooks is that they are free of ideological influences, which had been visible in Polish history textbooks before 1990.

„СВЕДОЧЕЊЕ ГОЛООТОЧКЕ ЗАТВОРЕНИЦЕ СМИЉЕ ФИЛИПЧЕВ И УТИЦАЈ КОМУНИСТИЧКЕ ИДЕОЛОГИЈЕ НА ЖИВОТ И СТРАДАЊЕ ЈЕДНЕ ПОРОДИЦЕ”

Author(s): Gordana Zalad / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 77/2022

In this paper, we have analysed the authentic testimony of Goli otok prisoner Smilja Filipčev. We interviewed Smilja during multiple encounters from 2011 to 2013. Our second source for this paper was her short book Open Door to Life. Chronicle of a Family. We had chosen Smilja Filipčevʼs testimony because her suffering was a precedent since it had been extended through most of her life. At the time of the Resolution of Informbureau in 1948, all members of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had to opt for or against the Resolution. On the party meeting, Smilja said that members of the Party should attend the meeting in Bucharest and defend the Partyʼs stance. Those words were her verdict which affected not only her life, but also the life of her entire family. The sufferings of Smilja Filipčev and her family had begun during the Second World War, had its peak during the Resolution of Informbureau 1948 – 1956 and its concentration camps and they even stretched into the period after her internment.Our main hypothesis was that the most loyal Communists who uncompromisingly believed in their idols of the equality and truth were being most heavily punished in the camps for re-education of convicts. We have shown and proved our hypoth- esis with the life experience of Smilja Filipčev and her family. We selected Smilja because her life had been full of sufferings and because she was willing to talk about it – other women victims we had met were not. We had not found the official evidence of torture and maltreatment done by investigators, managers or revised women prisoners in the prisons and camps, and that fact was the main reason for writing this paper. Everything Smilja said during our encounters and interviews and wrote in her book represents an authentic document worth of our attention.

Кризата в Косово в последното десетилетие на СФР Югославия

Author(s): Mariyana STAMOVA / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2022

The study provides an overview of the crisis in Kosovo in the 1980s, which is analyzed from an economic, political and international perspective. The period from Tito’s death until the mid-1980s was characterized by growing discontent among the Albanian population and a gradual escalation of tensions in Kosovo. On the other hand, after the death of the Albanian leader Enver Hoxha on April 11, 1985, Ramiz Alija became the head of the Albanian Labor Party and Albania entered a new stage of internationalization of the problem of the situation of the Albanians in Yugoslavia. The negative phenomena and trends in the development of Tito’s Yugoslavia in its last decades and especially after the death of the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito brought the country to a serious crisis. The contradictions in the Yugoslav society, the economic and political problems and the inter-ethnic tensions were exacerbated significantly and questioned the unity of the Yugoslav federation, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) and the future of the “Yugoslav model of socialism”. The general crisis in Yugoslavia, which encompassed the different areas of life found expression in the extreme aggravation of the economic, social, political and interethnic relations in Kosovo. The political processes, the exacerbation of the inter-ethnic relations, the developments in Kosovo and especially the introduced emergency measures had a negative effect on the international reputation of Yugoslavia. In the late 1980s the multinational Yugoslav federation faced the problem of its further existence.

Енциклопедично изследване на национално-териториалните конфликти в Източна Европа от 30-те – 40-те години, осъществено от един историк

Author(s): Iskra Baeva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2022

Book Review

„Rozkaz: zniszczyć cmentarz!”. Mikuliszki 1944–2022

Author(s): Tomasz Balbus / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2022

For several months, the repressive apparatus of the regime of Alexander Lukashenka has been liquidating Polish military cemeteries located in Belarus, including the quarters of Home Army soldiers. Deliberate destruction of places of national remembrance, demolition of soldiers’ tombstones, and razing to the ground monuments erected in honor of the fallen is known from history as a classic of the activities of the Soviet services. The Belarusian regime is doing what the Bolsheviks did before.

The Eternal Legacy of the Great Patriotic War?

Author(s): Marie Černá / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2022

Theoretically grounded in memory studies, this article reconstructs how the official Soviet-Russian myth of the Great Patriotic War has been politically instrumentalized and abused to promote and legitimize the Kremlin’s power intentions. It examines the forms, mechanisms and actors of this systematically applied politics of history and memory. First in the context of the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in August 1968 and the justification of the subsequent Soviet Army’s stay in the country, then in the context of the propaganda activities of (pro-)Russian activists in the Czech Republic and the current Russian aggression against Ukraine. By the myth of the Great Patriotic War, the author understands the purposefully created, maintained and idealized image of the victorious campaign of the Red Army between 1941 and 1945, the selfless and unprecedented Soviet heroism that saved European nations from German fascism. This sacralized narrative, which suppresses other historical narratives, is monopolized in contemporary Russian state policy as an important tool to shape the historical memory of Russian society and to unite it against new and presumably hostile threats. The author demonstrates the strategy in which during the normalization of the 1970s and 1980s the soldiers of the Soviet Army, who allegedly provided “fraternal assistance” in the suppression of the counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia in August 1968, were presented as the successors and “sons” of the heroic liberators of 1945 and shows how they themselves used and participated in this cult in their “comradeship” with Czech society. After the collapse of the communist regime, this official narrative lost its weight, but the “Russian world” (russkii mir) as a conglomerate of ideas linking segments of Russian culture, Orthodoxy, nationalism and shared historical memory has penetrated the Czech Republic, serving as a “marketing brand” to spread Russia’s geopolitical influence during Putin’s rule. Through the Russian-language press, web platforms and social media, the author maps the actors and forms of the “Russian world” in the Czech Republic, whose background consists of part of the local Russian minority and local pro-Russian associations or initiatives. She pays particular attention to the nationalist motorcycle club Night Wolves (Nochnye volki) and the originally civic, but gradually becoming a state movement Immortal Regiment (Bessmertnyi polk), which revive and promote the myth of the Great Patriotic War in line with the Kremlin’s intentions and which establish their branches beyond the borders of Russia, including the Czech Republic.

Исторический взгляд на актуальную политическую проблему. Фирмилиановый вопрос

Author(s): Biser Georgiev / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1-2/2023

Book Review

Македонските българи между Цариградската патриаршия и Българската екзархия в края на XIX век. Случаят „Брусник“

Author(s): Angel Zlatkov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2023

Towards the end of the 19th century, approximately . of the Orthodox Bulgarians in the historical-geographic region of Macedonia remained loyal to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which served the Greek national idea. In the past, as well as today, this fact has raised the question of the national affiliation of the Bulgarian-speaking population in the European domains of the Ottoman Empire. Why did these people, despite the long-term efforts of the Bulgarian Exarchate to attract them to itself, remain loyal to the Patriarchate? The author points out the unequal position of the two church institutions in the Ottoman administrative system as a leading factor that hindered the normal functioning of the Bulgarian Church and severely limited its ability to guarantee the political, religious and cultural-educational rights of the Bulgarian exarchists. On the border between the two centuries, at the center of the struggle for the distribution of the Ottoman heritage in the Balkans, the Bulgarians in Macedonia were faced with a difficult choice, on which depended not only their personal well-being, but sometimes even their lives.