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    Post ‐ totalitarian national identity: public memory in Germany and Russia


    Forest, Benjamin and Johnson, Juliet and Till, Karen E. (2004) Post ‐ totalitarian national identity: public memory in Germany and Russia. Social and Cultural Geography, 5 (3). pp. 357-380. ISSN 1464-9365

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    Abstract

    Through a comparative analysis of Germany and Russia, this paper explores how participation in the memorialization process affects and reflects national identity formation in post-totalitarian societies. These post-totalitarian societies face the common problem of re-presenting their national character as civic and democratic, in great part because their national identities were closely bound to oppressive regimes. Through a comparison of three memorial sites—Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial in Germany, and Lubianka Square and the Park of Arts in Russia—we argue that even where dramatic reductions in state power and the opening of civil society have occurred, a simple elite–public dichotomy cannot adequately capture the nature of participation in the process of memory re-formation. Rather, mutual interactions among multiple publics and elites, differing in kind and intensity across contexts, combine to form a complex pastiche of public memory that both interprets a nation’s past and suggests desirable models for its future. The domination of a ‘Western’ style of memorialization in former East Germany illustrates how even relatively open debates can lead to the exclusion of certain represen- tations of the nation. Nonetheless, Germany has had comparatively vigorous public debates about memorializing its totalitarian periods. In contrast, Russian elite groups have typically circumvented or manipulated participation in the memorialization process, reflecting both a reluctance to deal with Russia’s totalitarian past and a emerging national identity less civic and democratic than in Germany.

    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: Germany; monuments and memorials; politics of memory; public memory; Russia;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography
    Item ID: 9026
    Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1080/1464936042000252778
    Depositing User: Dr. Karen Till
    Date Deposited: 22 Nov 2017 16:44
    Journal or Publication Title: Social and Cultural Geography
    Publisher: Taylor & Francis
    Refereed: Yes
    URI:
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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