From the Editor

Abstract

From the Editor Scott Ury The current issue of History & Memory delves deep into many of the major themes that continue to be of interest to scholars of historical memory, including World War II, the fate of minority communities, the implications of new technologies and the intersection between these and other questions in lands beyond North America and Europe. The issue begins with Benjamin Tromly's intriguing discussion regarding the changing attitudes of different sectors of post-Soviet Russian society toward Andrei Andreevich Vlasov, a Soviet general who sought to create a Russian Liberation Army under German auspices during World War II. Tromly demonstrates how "the debate over Vlasov points to the fractured and unproductive nature of national collective memory in Russia" (3). In particular, Tromly's article highlights the different ways in which World War II continues to serve as a major flashpoint—and therefore also as a point of common discourse—for disputes over historical memory across the European continent, from Paris to St. Petersburg. The following contribution, by Volha Bartash, also considers the memory of World War II but shifts the focus from national debates to the experiences of a minority community by examining the memorial to Roma genocide victims in Navasyady, Belarus, which over five decades evolved from a standard Soviet war memorial to general, abstract "victims of fascism" into a family memorial designed by survivors of the 1942 massacre. Exploring the memorial's various meanings for the family, authorities, local residents and the Roma community, the article shows the role played by different mnemonic communities in the commemoration of the Roma genocide within the wider context of memory politics in contemporary Belarus. The events of World War II also lie at the center of Steffi de Jong's exploration of the advantages and disadvantages of using virtual reality technology to enable users to witness Nazi concentration and death camps or even take on the role of a victim. Analyzing a number of VR projects [End Page 1] that are in various stages of production, de Jong probes "what it means to be a witness to the Holocaust that such VR experiences entail" (71). The turn to wondrous new technologies allows the author to raise larger methodological questions regarding memory and its relationship to the past, including the question of whether such new media can "generate a reality that is experienced as being as real as the actual reality" (75), and whether the VR experience encourages or discourages historical empathy. Empathy for the past and the role that new technologies can play in promoting, diverting or preempting its development lie at the core of Pieter Van den Heede's analysis of how players experience two video games that address World War II and the Holocaust, Wolfenstein: The New Order and Call of Duty: WWII. Through an analysis of discussions with a number of focus groups, the author examines how "players construe meanings about playing digital entertainment games about World War II and the Holocaust in light of the study of digitized memory making" (109). Like de Jong, Van den Heede probes some of the more pressing questions regarding the changing nature of our understanding of the past at a time when digital media are increasingly becoming the main means through which many of us encounter and think about historical events. The impact of the new media is similarly central to Chelsi Mueller's article on memory politics in Bahrain, which examines the different ways in which the 2011 protests of the Arab Spring in Bahrain were perceived through the lens of an earlier Shiʻi uprising of 1922–1923. Tracing the history of sectarian clashes in Bahrain and the role of their memory in the February 2011 uprising, she analyzes discussions of these topics that appeared on Twitter, blogs and Facebook groups, along with the divergent narratives presented by the Bahrain government and the Iranian regime. The examination of this material allows her to show how the "intense contestation over individual and collective memories of past protest, state violence and colonial experience" that accompanied the 2011 protests reinforced the sectarian split between different elements of the opposition and "contributed to turning Bahrain's history into a...