POLITICS OF MEMORY IN THE POST-SOVIET REPUBLICS
An international seminar titled Politics of Memory in the Post-Soviet Republics was held at the Noravank Foundation on October 16, 2014. During the seminar presentations were by delivered historians specializing in 20th century, including Alexander Matinchenko (Ukraine), Alexey Bratochkin (Belarus), Rasa Čepaitienė (Lithuania) and Alex Voronovich (Hungary).
In his presentation titled Approaches to Teaching the 20th Century History to Students of Non-historical Specialties: the Peculiarity of Dnepropetrovsk in the Ukrainian Context, A. Marinchenko reviewed the example of Dnepropetrovsk city, where teaching history has some peculiarities determined not only by multiethnic audience, but also abundance of controversies in the Ukrainian history.
R. Čepaitienė talked about the debates around the draft law on the Nation’s Historical Memory (presentation topic: “Towards New Ideological Confrontation? The Politics of Memory in Modern Lithuania on the Example of the New Draft Law on Nation’s Historical Memory). These debates were accompanied by a conflict between historians and political forces. The speaker also presented the issue of history textbooks harmonization in relation to Lithuania’s membership in the EU.
A. Bratochkin talked about the quest for Belarussian national identity in the current stage, the circulated national projects in the context of perceptions of Russia and Europe (presentation topic: Between “Russia” and “Europe”: Peculiarities of the National Image of History in Belarus).
The presentation by A. Voronovich titled “History of Romanians or Moldovans? Debates on National Identity in Moldova (1990s-2000s)” was focused on two history teaching projects – Romanian and Moldovan. The speaker noted that the Romanian project was more popular in 1990s, but the positions of Moldovan nationalism strengthened in the recent decade.
At the end of the seminar the participants exchanged thoughts and had discussions.
