Researching Memory and Identity in Russia and Eastern Europe

Beschreibung

This book offers a collection of innovative methodological approaches to Memory Studies in Russia and Eastern Europe. Providing insights into the relationship between memory and identity, the twelve chapters provide multidisciplinary analysis of how history is used to reinforce, remould, and reinvent national and group identities. 

This analysis includes a strong emphasis on interrogating the role of the researcher and the impact of methodology, exploring the field’s most pressing challenges, such as the subjectivity of remembrance,  reception versus production of discourse, and the inclusion of marginal perspectives. 

By focussing on countries in which the past is highly politicised, including Serbia, Ukraine, Poland, Russia and the Baltic States, the volume also analyses the diverse – and often conflicting – ways in which historical narratives emerge from these states’ efforts to create new pasts that shape their respective visions of the future, with pressing ramifications across this region and beyond.

Jade McGlynn is Director of the Monterey Trialogue Initiative at Middlebury Institute of International Studies. She completed her DPhil (Russian) at the University of Oxford, where she also worked as a lecturer. She frequently comments on Russia for the media. Her monograph, The Kremlin’s Memory Makers, will be published in 2022.

Oliver T. Jones did his DPhil in German & Russian at the University of Oxford. His research interests lie in comparative literature and memory studies. He previously studied in London, Berlin, St Petersburg and Moscow, and was a visiting fellow at the Davis Center for Russian & Eurasian Studies at Harvard.

This book offers a collection of innovative methodological approaches to Memory Studies in Russia and Eastern Europe. Providing insights into the relationship between memory and identity, the twelve chapters provide multidisciplinary analysis of how history is used to reinforce, remould, and reinvent national and group identities. 

This analysis includes a strong emphasis on interrogating the role of the researcher and the impact of methodology, exploring the field’s most pressing challenges, such as the subjectivity of remembrance,  reception versus production of discourse, and the inclusion of marginal perspectives. 

By focussing on countries in which the past is highly politicised, including Serbia, Ukraine, Poland, Russia and the Baltic States, the volume also analyses the diverse – and often conflicting – ways in which historical narratives emerge from these states’ efforts to create new pasts that shape their respective visions of the future, with pressing ramifications across this region and beyond.

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Jade McGlynn

Themen in »Researching Memory and Identity in Russia and Eastern Europe«

memory ethics subjectivity memorialisation museum studies Holodomor Soviet Empire Soviet Union Second World War

Stimmen zu »Researching Memory and Identity in Russia and Eastern Europe«

“This book is significant in its conceptualization and meticulous selection of cases. The book can be regarded as an important and concrete contribution to the study of historical politics and the politics of memory. ... A notable strength of the volume lies in its emphasis on the significance of these dynamics in Central and Eastern Europe, a region where collective memories play a pivotal role in understanding democratic transition, European integration, and the rise of right-wing populism.” (José M. Faraldo, Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, Vol. 74 (3), 2025)

❝It is visible to even the most casual observer that narratives about history are a critical element to understanding politics across Eastern Europe. Covering this region where the deep scares of past violence are misused and instrumentalised in the conduct of everyday politics, the well-crafted volume represents an extremely timely contribution. Throughout the book, readers get acquainted with the numerous ways in which the past can be studied to appreciate why practices of remembering have such profound political and social implications. The multi-disciplinary volume includes extensive discussions of the theoretical starting points and displays the variety of methodological approaches so that we may gain a better understanding of the logics underpinning the perpetual presence of past experiences. The volume considers how the position of researchers determines the object of study itself, evaluates the different type of actors that are involved in shaping representations of the past and it does put at the centre of our attention the fact that narratives of the past circulate across borders.❞ (Félix Krawatzek, Senior Researcher, Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS), Germany and Associate Member of Nuffield College, University of Oxford, UK)
❝Oliver Jones and Jade McGlynn’s volume is a timely and useful collection of innovative chapters dealing with numerous methodological issues that students of current memory politics in Eastern Europe and beyond have to deal with. It critically examines the approaches and methods of disciplines as different as psychology, moral philosophy, literary studies, history, sociology, and political science, in search of a productive dialogue between researchers involved in this increasingly important multidisciplinary field.❞ (Nikolay Koposov, Distinguished Professor of the Practice, School of History and Sociology and School of Literature, Media, and Communication, USA)

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