A Review of JU. A. SAFRONOVA, ISTORICHESKAYA PAMYAT: VVEDENIE [HISTORICAL MEMORY: AN INTRODUCTION]: A Textbook. St Petersburg: European University at St Petersburg Press, 2019, 220 pp.

Abstract

of contemporary memory studies. Contradictions of the constructivist interpretation of memory politics that dominates in Russia and Eastern Europe are compared with the ethical pathos of Western memory studies. The textbook implies a “defensive” strategy, subordinating the “memory boom” to neutral academic expertise. however, such a frame eliminates the cooperative practices connecting professional historians, social researchers and a wide variety of enthusiasts workingthrough their common past. The aims of this working-through are, on the one hand, a clarification of the phenomenology of historical experience, and on the other, a revision of relations between private and public spheres in contemporary