Memory politics and oblivion politics in Central and Eastern Europe after the end of communist political systems

Abstract

The memories of communism in Central and Eastern Europe are in the center of the article by Bruno Groppo, who presents an overview of the politics of memory developed after the end of Communist political systems. Different from one country to another, they still present, however, common characteristics, evoking, in certain aspects, the memories produced in many European countries after the Second World War. Is built, as then, the myth of a society victim innocent, on the one hand, and resistant, on the other. The communist past is seen entirely in negative terms, as a period of violence and terror, and communism, in a way, externalized, that is, presented as a political system lacking roots in society, imposed from outside and held in power, exclusively, by force. The responsibility for everything is entirely to the Soviet Union; just as in 1945 Nazi Germany was unanimously considered the exclusive responsible for all the ills of the recently ended world war. The myth of the innocent victim joins that of a society almost, totally, resistant, that from the beginning fought tenaciously and heroically against communism. In the interpretations of the past that are at the base of the politics of memory post-Communist memory do not find those aspects that contradict or are not fully in accordance with the image that they are trying to convey. For example, the issue of consensus, more or less broad, which benefited the Communist regimes, is rarely evoked. The same happens with other embarrassing topics, such as the participation of sectors of the population, in some countries, in the persecution and extermination of Jews. In sum, the public memories of communism are often built on a distortion of historical reality.