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Politics of Recognition

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Memory Archipelago of the Communist Past

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies ((PMMS))

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Abstract

This chapter takes the investigation further to transitional justice in the broad sense: declassification of state-security archives, truth seeking (including the establishment of historical commissions and institutes of memory), memorialization and commemoration. Their importance for the theme of the book is predicated upon their potential to establish stable regimes of memory, and to influence what is remembered, how and why. The comparison with other CEE countries reveals the ambivalence of the Bulgarian case: apart from the opening of the archives, the state has all too soon abandoned the politics of memory leaving it in the hands of a plethora of social actors with diverse agendas. As a result, the production, sha** and sustenance of the memory of communism have migrated from the field of politics to that of culture, risking to remain limited to this narrower and in a sense ‘elitist’ field. While this is not an anomaly, when cultural discourses (both research and artistic representations) lack the support of a public and political debate, they remain out of reach for great swathes of the population.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The best known is the South African Commission, in operation from 1995 to 1998. It collected more than 22 thousand testimonies, around 2000 of which were public.

  2. 2.

    With a few disclaimers, the historical commissions in the Baltic States and Romania can be recognized as truth commissions, given how similar their objective is. Their approach, however, is very different (see below).

  3. 3.

    For a brief overview of these institutions, their functions, the conditions for access and the legislative base, see: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/echr-janowiec-annex-20130116.pdf, last accessed 27 January 2022.

  4. 4.

    State Gazette, 63/06.08.1997.

  5. 5.

    State Gazette, 45/30.04.2002.

  6. 6.

    State Gazette, 102/19.12.2006.

  7. 7.

    Deutscher Bundestag, Schlußbericht der Enquette-Kommission “Überwindung der Folgen der SED-Diktatur im Prozeß der deutschen Einheit”, Drucksache 13/11000 (10. 06. 1998), S. 226 u. passim.

  8. 8.

    For details see Mark, 2010: 33–46.

  9. 9.

    Since 2018—Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights. See e.g. Mark, 2008, Radonić, 2018.

  10. 10.

    https://ipn.gov.pl/en/about-the-institute/mission/ last accessed 27 January 2022.

  11. 11.

    Since 2009—Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania and the Memory of Romanian Exile.

  12. 12.

    http://www.cnsas.ro, last accessed 27 January 2022.

  13. 13.

    https://www.upn.gov.sk/data/pdf/553_2002_en.pdf § 8, last accessed 27 January 2022.

  14. 14.

    https://www.veritasintezet.hu/en/ accessed 27 January 2022. On the revisionist narrative of WWII and the role of VERITAS in its imposition see Rév 2018: p. 134.

  15. 15.

    https://www.scnr.si/en/about-the-centre.html accessed 27 January 2022.

  16. 16.

    See Lleshi, 2019 for more detail about this institution, and the manner in which, according to the author, it institutionalizes the memory of a specific social group.

  17. 17.

    http://minaloto.bg/за-нас/ last accessed 27 January 2022.

  18. 18.

    For further details, see: Nadkarni, 2003, Horvath, 2008.

  19. 19.

    http://grutoparkas.lt/en_US/, last accessed 27 January 2022.

  20. 20.

    PACE Resolution No. 1652 (29 January 2009) Attitude to memorials exposed to different historical interpretations in Council of Europe member states, art. 8.

  21. 21.

    For further details, see Farmer, 1995, Niethammer, 2006.

  22. 22.

    Walls inscribed with the names of victims are a feature of Holocaust memorials in Paris, Budapest, Miami, and others, including Amsterdam’s “Names memorial” opened in September 2021.

  23. 23.

    Only in 2011 was the decision taken to declare February 1st as the Day for commemoration of the victims of communism in Bulgaria. On this date in 1945, the death sentences of some 140 members of the Bulgarian political and military elite in the 1941–1944 period, were announced and immediately carried out.

  24. 24.

    On the social construction of victimhood see Giesen, 2004.

  25. 25.

    Susannah Radstone (2001) criticizes the approach taken by Marianne Hirsch towards “canonical” post-memory, which utilizes the image of children to depict the victims as “pure”, entirely innocent. As an alternative, she cites Primo Levi’s deliberations on the “gray zone,” according to which the space that separates the victims and the perpetrators is never empty.

  26. 26.

    The Belene camp and the memory of it is discussed in detail in Chap. 5.

  27. 27.

    In 1990 already, a campaign for the collection of objects, under the moto “GDR in the museum” was announced. These were objects from everyday life, whose worth was created precisely by their being collected.

  28. 28.

    The author consciously applies these terms, which certainly are not value-neutral, to hint at the critiques of the two types of museum representation (Kazalarska, 2013: 174). Outside of this dichotomy, she fleshes out a third type, a “Disneyfying” museum, which exploits one of the two representational matrices, with commercial ambitions.

  29. 29.

    Since 2018—Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights.

  30. 30.

    Since 2017—Museum of Occupations and Freedom, with a new permanent exhibition, which constructs a more-complex and inclusive narrative about the period.

  31. 31.

    For the repurposing of imagery from the Holocaust’s representational repertoire in museums commemorating communism, see Zombory, 2017: 11–13; Radonić, 2018.

  32. 32.

    https://casaceausescu.ro/?page_id=3412&lang=en. last accessed: 03.12.2021.

  33. 33.

    Founded in 1947, during a period of rapid industrialization, built in large part by youth brigades, Dimitrovgrad became a propaganda symbol for socialist construction.

  34. 34.

    The site is inactive, and the museum itself was severely affected by the Covid-19 lockdowns, and its fate remains unclear.

  35. 35.

    http://www.victimsofcommunism.bg, last accessed: 12.02.2018.

  36. 36.

    See the following chapter for details.

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  1. History and Theory of Culture, Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Daniela Koleva

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Koleva, D. (2022). Politics of Recognition. In: Memory Archipelago of the Communist Past. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04658-2_4

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