Abstract
Time, history and the past are key issues today in many contemporary Eastern European societies. Political parties and movements use history in order to present their vision of future of the societies. Public debates try to explain what happened in the past, how one should understand what happened to the nation in the decades of socialism. At the same time this process of reproduction of history and past will be associated with political visions of the future of post-socialist societies. To say it otherwise: there is a social and political discourse, and a symbolic process of rethinking history all over in Eastern Europe. The paper describes and analyses some central topics and strategies, various facets and vignettes of this discourse, and tries to show how history became a matter of public interest, a conflict of the political culture, and an object of hard efforts of different institutions and organizations.
How to Cite
Niedermüller, P., (1998) “History, Past, and the Post-Socialist Nation”, Ethnologia Europaea 28(2), 169-182. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/ee.889
Publisher Notes
- This article was previously published by Museum Tusculanum Press.