Remembering Dictatorship Workshop 2: State Socialist Pasts in Post-Socialist Presents - What do we remember?
25 May 2011
Wednesday 25 May 2011, 14:00 - 17:00, Verdon-Smith room, IAS, First Floor, Royal Fort House
Convenor
Dr Sara Jones, Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow, School of Modern Languages
Workshop 2: What do we remember?
The second in a series of three workshops interrogating the legacy of socialist dictatorship.
One of the key issues in discussing the state socialist past in post-socialist contexts is the question of terminology: both the terms used to describe the past, as well as those used to describe the processes of remembering.
Discussion surrounding state socialist pasts is highly politically charged and the use of terminology is linked to positioning within contemporary debates regarding the nature of past regimes. In historical studies, theories of ‘totalitarianism’ compete with more differentiated understandings of societies under this form of authoritarian rule.
Where the term ‘communism’ is common in museums and memorials relating to the period, political scientists debate the accuracy of using this word to designate societies that defined themselves as ‘socialist’, en route to, but not yet having achieved, communist utopia. In regard to the processes of remembering, the concept of ‘coming-to-terms-with’ suggests a completed process that lays the past to rest and focuses society on the future.
In contrast, the term ‘working through’ implies uncovering the past in order to understand it, without necessarily aiming to draw a line under the period in question.
This workshop seeks to highlight the issues of terminology within and across disciplinary boundaries.
Position Papers:
Ms Nadine Nowroth (German, Trinity College Dublin/Berlin): Coming to Terms with the GDR Past: An Examination of Different (Historical and Media-related) Approaches
Ms Claire Hyland (European Studies, University of Bath): Ostalgie and the Marginalisation of east Germanness
Dr Rajendra Chitnis (Russian and Czech, University of Bristol): You Say You Had A Revolution? The Problems of Organizing Post-War Czechoslovak Political and Literary History
For more information on this workshop series and to book a place, please contact Sara Jones (sara.jones@bristol.ac.uk; ext: 89011) or see Remembering Dictatorship Workshop Series.