Ideology, Memory And Religion In Post-Communist East Central Europe: A Comparative Study Focused On Post-Holocaust

Abstract

Post-communist East-Central Europe is witnessing a clash of memories focused on its recent past. Whereas Western memory is constructed around the “politics of regret” and responsibility-assumption vis-à-vis the Holocaust, Eastern memory focuses to a large extent on responsibility-attribution for the trauma of communist rule. These are comparable traumatic experiences, but due to different “cognitive mapping” and different mnemonic social frameworks, Eastern memory has produced a post-mnemonic framework that allows for a creeping justification of interwar Radical Right ideologies; for the transmogrification some of their standard-bearers into anti-communist heroes and martyrs; and the obfuscation World War II history. In some countries, religion and its past representatives are used for the same purpose.