We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
On 19 December 2022, Mark Rutte, as the first Prime Minister of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, officially apologized for the harm suffered by the descendants of slaves brought to work in colonies in the Caribbean, Suriname, Asia and the European Netherlands. The Prime Minister announced state celebrations on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the Kingdom’s colonies on 1 July 2023. The slave trade brought great profits. After World War II, only Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles remained within the colonial empire of the Netherlands (New Dutch Guinea was a dependent territory until 1962). As a result of the political reforms of 2010, the Netherlands Antilles were dissolved. Currently, the Kingdom of the Netherlands consist of four autonomous countries and special (overseas) municipalities that are part of the European Netherlands. The decision to apologize for the Kingdom’s colonial past will not end deep-seated disputes. In 2021, a report was issued stating that slavery was a crime against the population and calling for the creation of a Kingdom fund for the families of people affected by slavery. Its adoption will have far-reaching effects on Dutch society.
More...
Review of: Алексей Миллер, Ольга Малинова и Дмитрий Ефременко, ред. Политика памяти в России – региональное измерение. М.: Институт научной информации по общественным наукам РАН, 2023. 471 с. ISBN 9785248010530.
More...
This article presents Polish naming threads among the streets of the largest cities in Eastern Galicia – Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil after 1991. Before World War II these were Polish voivodeship cities, culturally dominated by Poles and Jews. Nowadays they are dominated by Ukrainians, who for the last 30 years have been trying to form their ambiguous historical policy. The politics of memory in these cities are conducted in two ways – on the one hand, they are shaping the symbolic landscape based on commemorating figures, organisations, dates or incidents related to Ukrainian nation-building processes, and on the other hand, they are returning to the multicultural heritage. A relevant thread are the names of streets and squares commemorating persons and organisations connected with Polish culture, which are still functioning and their number is increasing. The text indicates the reasons for this phenomenon, as well as the social and political implications arising from it.
More...
The Author attempts to determine the real objectives and motives behind Russia’s entirely unprovoked invasion on Ukraine on 24 February 2022. In search of ways and means of ending the war and in an attempt to foresee its further developments, he presents the narratives used by both sides, their official stances, as well as opinions of eminent political thinkers, analysts, and researchers. According to the Author, the Russian-Ukrainian war only superficially resembles other secession conflicts – those resulting from decolonization (e.g. between India and Pakistan, on religious grounds), from ethnic conflicts (Northern Ireland’s attempts to secede from the UK), from cultural conflicts (Basque Country and Catalonia in Spain), or from conflicts over the system of government (the war on the Korean peninsula, ended by the armistice in 1953). In the case of Russia, the main motive of its aggression in Ukraine is undermining Ukraine’s right to choose the European system of values. At the root of the Russian invasion of Ukraine lies Russia’s internal domestic situation rather than any conflict of interests among the States. The war, called in Russia a “special military operation”, has become a way to justify the establishment of the system of police and military dictatorship with all that it entails.
More...
In this special issue of Acta Poloniae Historica, we look at mnemonic wars in Poland from comparative and transnational perspectives. While the mnemonic wars are a global phenomenon, Poland is an interesting laboratory of their specificities in Eastern Europe, a region that has undergone multiple transformations in the last decades. The last thirty years have brought changes in political regimes and economic systems, shifts in international safety networks, sudden social dislocations, and migration waves.
More...
Whilst Poland appears today as a paradigmatic example of a homogeneous, exclusive national and cultural identity, reinforced by the hegemonic historical policy of a semi-authoritarian state, it is also challenged by Polish minority histories (civilian, multi-ethnic, non-Catholic, women). The main concern of the present article is the plural ‘Polishness’ that emerges from the constellation of these non- -default histories. To examine the frictions of historical narratives in action, authors use spaces of historical museums as a field of observation, perceiving them as memory agents fostering not only confrontational but also negotiative memory politics. To identify situations in which tensions between the ‘central’ Polishness and its unorthodox variants are particularly evident, the paper takes a look at ‘non-central’ Polish territories i.e. ‘post-German’ areas, characterized by a complex heterogeneous past in which Germanness and Polishness, but also ‘Silesianness’ or ‘Borderlandness’ mutually clash and dialogue. Analysis of selected exhibitions’ construction reveals peculiarities of different local contexts in transitional spaces and strategies of resolving creeping conflicts between ‘the Polishness’ and plural, peripheral ‘Polishnesses’.
More...
The article examines the memoirs of Polish soldiers who settled in the lands that Poland acquired after the Second World War, the so-called Recovered Territories. The author argues that these memoirs reflect different forms of conveying the stories about the ‘recovery’, i.e. the acquisition of the formerly German lands by the Polish state in 1945. Depending on the historical and political context, as well as the personal and collective experiences of the settlers, she identifies its two main forms: myth and lore. The myth involves stories that are considered authoritative and obligatory, while lore is a type of storytelling that involves stories that are considered flexible and optional by the people who tell or listen to them. She further analyses how the myth of the ‘recovery’ subsequently transformed over time into lore from the immediate post-war period up to the 1970s.
More...
The article attempts to analyze the discourse formulas: on behalf of Rzeczypospolita and on behalf of Poland in the speeches of the presidents of the Third Polish Republic (1995-2023). The aim is to describe the potential of these formulas in the context of constructing the collective identity. The authors continue the debate undertaken in the previous publication (Dyoniziak & Pirogowska, 2023) and show on the basis of 1000 presidential speeches written on www.prezydent.pl that the proper name Rzeczpospolita has greater identity potential than the name Polska in creating a national community.
More...
The present article outlines the conflict between the representative of the pro-Kremlin part of the Russian minority in Latvia and the local political community. The case will be presented in the broader context of the problems that emerge due to the constitutionalisation of new democratic communities after the fall of communism, the issues of the rule of law together, with questions of its unlimited inclusiveness. By discussing the case of Tatiana Zhdanok in a broad socio-political and historical context, it will be possible to reflect on Central European dilemmas concerning the values considered to be leading within the political community.
More...
The paper examines the complex web and role of memory in the context of Cyprus. It focuses on the mutually exclusive narratives and memory politics of the two communities in the public sphere and education and thus shows how generations of Cypriots are being socialised into different grand stories of the past. More specifically, it delves into the discursive practices of both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots and reveals how these practices, into which entire generations are being socialised, contribute to the perpetuation of ethnic division, while producing and reproducing entrenched ingroup narratives of victimhood and heroism that hinder prospects for rapprochement and reconciliation.
More...