Post-Communist Memories, Between National and Transnational: Historiographical Approaches and Symbolic Landscapes

Abstract

Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet system, the analysis of European post-communist memories constitutes a prolific area of reflection. This article approaches some keys of phenomenon. It addresses its explanation as transnational practices, although focused on the identity affirmation of the national, in relation to certain debates on politics of memory. The second part approaches two concrete commemoration frameworks that show the fluidity between the transnational and the local: The Balkan context, defined by the traumatic rupture of Yugoslav multinational memory, but also by nostalgic memory. And a symbol with great transnational projection – the cross – which has been adapted to the requirements of each national memory and has been involved in polemics, for example, in opposition to the dominant allegorical value of Auschwitz.

Keywords

Post-communism, historiographical debate, simbology, transnational memories, national memory, nostalgia