Jelena Subotić’s Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism has already received such broad recognition and numerous awards that its invaluable contribution to memory studies likely does not need repeating. It is not only a study of Holocaust remembrance in particular, but contributes broadly to our understanding of memory appropriation by the state, through a careful and vivid analysis of its transformation over time in several Eastern and Central European countries. Subotić provides a study of how memory can serve as a strategic tool for reinforcing state interests. The central argument of the book is that the states in question – Croatia, Lithuania, and Serbia – engage in memory appropriation in order to qualify their ontological insecurities (14). The strategies include “memory inversion,” appropriating the Holocaust to emphasize crimes against them (primarily in Serbia), “memory divergence,” placing blame for the genocide on German Nazis (Croatia), or “memory conflation,” wherein Holocaust memory is combined and equated with Communist crimes (Lithuania, 15). These appropriation strategies, which overlap and are combined in the various states, allow states to paint themselves as the ultimate victims, absolving them of responsibility for their role in Holocaust crimes. The danger, of course, is that this not only set ups the false equivalence between victims of Communism and of the Holocaust, allowing for the relativization of Nazi collaboration as anti-Communist resistance, but also because it banalizes and trivializes the specific suffering of the Jewish population.
{"title":"Appropriating Memory in the Name of the State","authors":"Tamara P. Trošt","doi":"10.1017/nps.2023.68","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2023.68","url":null,"abstract":"Jelena Subotić’s Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism has already received such broad recognition and numerous awards that its invaluable contribution to memory studies likely does not need repeating. It is not only a study of Holocaust remembrance in particular, but contributes broadly to our understanding of memory appropriation by the state, through a careful and vivid analysis of its transformation over time in several Eastern and Central European countries. Subotić provides a study of how memory can serve as a strategic tool for reinforcing state interests. The central argument of the book is that the states in question – Croatia, Lithuania, and Serbia – engage in memory appropriation in order to qualify their ontological insecurities (14). The strategies include “memory inversion,” appropriating the Holocaust to emphasize crimes against them (primarily in Serbia), “memory divergence,” placing blame for the genocide on German Nazis (Croatia), or “memory conflation,” wherein Holocaust memory is combined and equated with Communist crimes (Lithuania, 15). These appropriation strategies, which overlap and are combined in the various states, allow states to paint themselves as the ultimate victims, absolving them of responsibility for their role in Holocaust crimes. The danger, of course, is that this not only set ups the false equivalence between victims of Communism and of the Holocaust, allowing for the relativization of Nazi collaboration as anti-Communist resistance, but also because it banalizes and trivializes the specific suffering of the Jewish population.","PeriodicalId":46973,"journal":{"name":"Nationalities Papers-The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135817211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Framed within discussions on how law operationalizes race and ethnicity, the authors provide a description of how anti-Semitic racially exclusionary legislation identified, classified, and operationalized the Jewry in Hungary between 1920 and 1944.
{"title":"Jewish by Law: Legislative Operationalizing of Race and Ethnicity in Holocaust-Era Hungary","authors":"András L. Pap, Veronika Lehotay","doi":"10.1017/nps.2023.63","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2023.63","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Framed within discussions on how law operationalizes race and ethnicity, the authors provide a description of how anti-Semitic racially exclusionary legislation identified, classified, and operationalized the Jewry in Hungary between 1920 and 1944.","PeriodicalId":46973,"journal":{"name":"Nationalities Papers-The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135435471","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic was a critical event that has challenged regionalist-secessionist parties to maintain their dominance at the regional level, because it has questioned the attractiveness of the idea of independence for the electorate. Nevertheless, the results of the regional elections 2021 in Catalonia and Scotland brought about the success of regionalist parties with secessionist demands. This study analyzes regionalist parties’ strategies in the 2021 regional elections in Catalonia and Scotland, advancing our understanding of their strategic choices to get/remain in office. This study employed the Regional Manifesto project methodological approach to perform a manual content analysis of party positioning and selective emphasis. Additionally, it advances the distinction between blurring and subsuming strategies through a frame analysis of electoral campaigns. The results suggest that regionalist parties mainly use subsuming and two-dimensional strategies to gain electoral success and that the exact strategic choices depend on the structure of the competition. The research confirms the framing of territorial demands primarily in socioeconomic rather than political terms, as proposed by the FraTerr Project. However, regionalist parties have avoided radicalizing their social demands owing to the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
{"title":"Secessionism as the Mainstream: Regionalist Parties’ Strategies in the Catalan and Scottish 2021 Regional Elections","authors":"Andrei Tarasov, Yulia Belous","doi":"10.1017/nps.2023.65","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2023.65","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic was a critical event that has challenged regionalist-secessionist parties to maintain their dominance at the regional level, because it has questioned the attractiveness of the idea of independence for the electorate. Nevertheless, the results of the regional elections 2021 in Catalonia and Scotland brought about the success of regionalist parties with secessionist demands. This study analyzes regionalist parties’ strategies in the 2021 regional elections in Catalonia and Scotland, advancing our understanding of their strategic choices to get/remain in office. This study employed the Regional Manifesto project methodological approach to perform a manual content analysis of party positioning and selective emphasis. Additionally, it advances the distinction between blurring and subsuming strategies through a frame analysis of electoral campaigns. The results suggest that regionalist parties mainly use subsuming and two-dimensional strategies to gain electoral success and that the exact strategic choices depend on the structure of the competition. The research confirms the framing of territorial demands primarily in socioeconomic rather than political terms, as proposed by the FraTerr Project. However, regionalist parties have avoided radicalizing their social demands owing to the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic.","PeriodicalId":46973,"journal":{"name":"Nationalities Papers-The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity","volume":"356 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135435472","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article focuses on the role of textbooks in the construction of national identity by analyzing state-approved versions of national identity and history in Kazakhstan. By doing so, this project seeks to highlight what understanding of identity prevails in the history textbooks of Kazakhstan, what narratives regarding the key historic events are promoted, particularly with respect to the Dzhungar wars, annexation of Kazakh Khanate by the Russian Empire, and the Soviet era. Finally, this article compares the main narratives in the textbooks published in Kazakh and Russian languages to illustrate differences and various understandings of identity in the two linguistic realms of Kazakhstan. The article argues that Kazakhstan’s textbooks combine new, independence-focused narratives with the old approaches and partial reproduction of the Soviet symbolic discourse.
{"title":"New Narratives and Old Myths: History Textbooks in Kazakhstan","authors":"A. Burkhanov, Dina Sharipova","doi":"10.1017/nps.2023.64","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2023.64","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article focuses on the role of textbooks in the construction of national identity by analyzing state-approved versions of national identity and history in Kazakhstan. By doing so, this project seeks to highlight what understanding of identity prevails in the history textbooks of Kazakhstan, what narratives regarding the key historic events are promoted, particularly with respect to the Dzhungar wars, annexation of Kazakh Khanate by the Russian Empire, and the Soviet era. Finally, this article compares the main narratives in the textbooks published in Kazakh and Russian languages to illustrate differences and various understandings of identity in the two linguistic realms of Kazakhstan. The article argues that Kazakhstan’s textbooks combine new, independence-focused narratives with the old approaches and partial reproduction of the Soviet symbolic discourse.","PeriodicalId":46973,"journal":{"name":"Nationalities Papers-The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43902016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.
{"title":"NPS volume 51 issue 5 Cover and Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/nps.2023.69","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2023.69","url":null,"abstract":"An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.","PeriodicalId":46973,"journal":{"name":"Nationalities Papers-The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135200494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The presence and influence of peripheral elites in national political institutions is frequently handled by the press. But, oddly enough, the lack of a comprehensive vision of this issue tends to feed flashy titles alerting about the influence of some territorial groups in central institutions such as the “Scottish Raj,” the “Tartan mafia,” or the “Cosa Scotia” in London. This article aims to provide a general theoretical framework able to orient those fragmented researches. This literature review was led from May 2018 to June 2020. It presents those results in six sections. The ways in which peripheral elites get access to central institutions are analyzed in the first section. In the second section, we introduce the literature about the presence of peripheral elites in the state apparatus, before stressing the different networks representing the interests of peripheries in the city capitals in section three. Fourth, this article points out the various career orientations of peripheral elected officials. This leads us to question their policy influence in different fields. Lastly, a short section tackles the phobias provoked by the rise of peripheral elites occupying central political positions, before proposing a general framework for orienting future research on this topic.
{"title":"Peripheral Elites in West European Central States’ Apparatus: An Introduction","authors":"Jean-Baptiste Harguindéguy, Alejandro Peinado-García, Giulia Sandri","doi":"10.1017/nps.2023.27","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2023.27","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The presence and influence of peripheral elites in national political institutions is frequently handled by the press. But, oddly enough, the lack of a comprehensive vision of this issue tends to feed flashy titles alerting about the influence of some territorial groups in central institutions such as the “Scottish Raj,” the “Tartan mafia,” or the “Cosa Scotia” in London. This article aims to provide a general theoretical framework able to orient those fragmented researches. This literature review was led from May 2018 to June 2020. It presents those results in six sections. The ways in which peripheral elites get access to central institutions are analyzed in the first section. In the second section, we introduce the literature about the presence of peripheral elites in the state apparatus, before stressing the different networks representing the interests of peripheries in the city capitals in section three. Fourth, this article points out the various career orientations of peripheral elected officials. This leads us to question their policy influence in different fields. Lastly, a short section tackles the phobias provoked by the rise of peripheral elites occupying central political positions, before proposing a general framework for orienting future research on this topic.","PeriodicalId":46973,"journal":{"name":"Nationalities Papers-The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity","volume":"51 1","pages":"991 - 1000"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45772131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"NPS volume 51 issue 5 Cover and Back matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/nps.2023.70","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2023.70","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46973,"journal":{"name":"Nationalities Papers-The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity","volume":" ","pages":"b1 - b2"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43884163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Several watershed events preceded the dissolution of Yugoslavia. One of these was the toppling of the Vojvodina autonomist leadership in October 1988. This was preceded by a series of rallies throughout Vojvodina in the summer of 1988, which may have seemed like a spontaneous affair and the work of “ordinary citizens.” It was called “the antibureaucratic revolution.” However, these rallies, including a standing group of demonstrators, continually and always referring to the grievances of Kosovo Serbs, turned out to be supported by the Serbian political elite centered in Belgrade. The elite, still headed by the Serbian Communist Chief Slobodan Milošević, gave thrust and coordination to efforts to organize the rallies. The Vojvodina leadership was toppled for their alleged “failing to understand the plight of Kosovo Serbs.” The overthrow was, further, with a view to achieve the Serbian elite’s pet project, the “united Serbia”—that is, doing away with Vojvodina’s and Kosovo’s autonomy. Written sources (including recollections by Yugoslav leaders of the time) and written sources are considered in research on the events.
{"title":"The Hot Vojvodina Summer Of 1988: Did Vojvodinians Seek to Overthrow Their Government?","authors":"Sergej Flere","doi":"10.1017/nps.2023.51","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2023.51","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Several watershed events preceded the dissolution of Yugoslavia. One of these was the toppling of the Vojvodina autonomist leadership in October 1988. This was preceded by a series of rallies throughout Vojvodina in the summer of 1988, which may have seemed like a spontaneous affair and the work of “ordinary citizens.” It was called “the antibureaucratic revolution.” However, these rallies, including a standing group of demonstrators, continually and always referring to the grievances of Kosovo Serbs, turned out to be supported by the Serbian political elite centered in Belgrade. The elite, still headed by the Serbian Communist Chief Slobodan Milošević, gave thrust and coordination to efforts to organize the rallies. The Vojvodina leadership was toppled for their alleged “failing to understand the plight of Kosovo Serbs.” The overthrow was, further, with a view to achieve the Serbian elite’s pet project, the “united Serbia”—that is, doing away with Vojvodina’s and Kosovo’s autonomy. Written sources (including recollections by Yugoslav leaders of the time) and written sources are considered in research on the events.","PeriodicalId":46973,"journal":{"name":"Nationalities Papers-The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49202713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union, by Vladislav M. Zubok, Yale University Press, 2021, 576 pp., $35.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9780300268171, $25.00 (paperback), ISBN 9780300257304.","authors":"L. Siegelbaum","doi":"10.1017/nps.2023.67","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2023.67","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46973,"journal":{"name":"Nationalities Papers-The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46996828","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Agnieszka Turoń-Kowalska, T. Nawrocki, A. Pyszkowska
This article analyzes the trauma of war present in the collective memory of the inhabitants of the village of Bojszowy. It may transform into a cultural trauma that significantly determines the community’s identity. Combining four strands of literature—memory studies, nationalist studies, historical studies, and psychological studies—the authors argue that in the community under study, the trauma connected with Upper Silesians’ service in the Wehrmacht during World War II constitutes such a collective cultural trauma. Based on the study of the collective memory of the Silesian community and interviews with the Silesian intellectual elite, the article analyzes in detail how the memory of these events has changed the identity of the Upper Silesian community in recent years. This does not mean that we underestimate the importance of the other elements that make up the Upper Silesian tragedy. A combination of local circumstances meant that the service of Silesians in the Wehrmacht was crucial to the occurrence of cultural trauma (in J. Alexander’s terms).
{"title":"Cultural Trauma of World War II: The Case of the Upper Silesian Village of Bojszowy","authors":"Agnieszka Turoń-Kowalska, T. Nawrocki, A. Pyszkowska","doi":"10.1017/nps.2023.52","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2023.52","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article analyzes the trauma of war present in the collective memory of the inhabitants of the village of Bojszowy. It may transform into a cultural trauma that significantly determines the community’s identity. Combining four strands of literature—memory studies, nationalist studies, historical studies, and psychological studies—the authors argue that in the community under study, the trauma connected with Upper Silesians’ service in the Wehrmacht during World War II constitutes such a collective cultural trauma. Based on the study of the collective memory of the Silesian community and interviews with the Silesian intellectual elite, the article analyzes in detail how the memory of these events has changed the identity of the Upper Silesian community in recent years. This does not mean that we underestimate the importance of the other elements that make up the Upper Silesian tragedy. A combination of local circumstances meant that the service of Silesians in the Wehrmacht was crucial to the occurrence of cultural trauma (in J. Alexander’s terms).","PeriodicalId":46973,"journal":{"name":"Nationalities Papers-The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47506562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}