Translating Memories: The Eastern European Past in the Global Arena

We are happy to announce our new publication in the Journal of Baltic Studies. The article is written by Hanna Maria Aunin and explores transformation of the memory of Soviet mass deportations in Estonia through two films: Awakening (1989) and In the Crosswind (2014).

The transformation of the memory of Soviet mass deportations in Estonia: from Awakening (1989) to In the Crosswind (2014) This article explores the changing memory of Soviet mass deportations in Estonian film through a comparative analysis of two features: Jüri Sillart’s Awakening (1989) and Martti Helde’s In the Cros...

We are very happy to announce our latest publication: the special forum "Perpetrators, Collaborators, and Implicated Subjects in Central and Eastern Europe," just published in the latest issue of the Slavic and East European Journal: https://seej.org/issues/67.3.html

Project leader Eneken Laanes and former project postdoc Margaret Comer co-edited this collection of articles, which each consider different presences or absences of "implication," as first theorized by Michael Rothberg, as a way of complicating conventional models of perpetration and collaboration in situations and memories of mass violence. Since the forum comes out of a workshop held in June 2021, it addresses "being part of the discussion of the decolonization of Eastern European studies that has been prompted by the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine" as it analyzes "the specific problems of coming to terms with the legacies of Stalinism in Russia and with those of N**i and Soviet occupation, the Holocaust, and socialist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Baltic States." Overall, the forum asks: "How do certain subject positions enable or restrict our ability to recognize and deal with different forms of violence and conceive of our responsibility and agency in relation to them?"

In addition to the introduction, there are five articles:

Portraying Perpetration, Victimhood, and Implication at Sites of Soviet Repression in Moscow (Margaret Comer, University College London and Tallinn University)

“Us” as Perpetrators and Collaborators in Post-Socialist Memorial Museums in the Era of Victimhood (Ljiljana Radonić, Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Diversification and Alternative Subjectivities in Estonian Museums: Memory of Soviet Collaboration and Complicity Revisited (Ene Kõresaar, University of Tartu, and Kirsti Jõesalu, University of Tartu)

Screening the Holocaust Perpetrator in Lithuania: Purple Smoke (2019) and Izaokas (2019) (Violeta Davoliute, Lithuanian Institute of History)

Spectacular Provocation: The Spectators as Implicated Subjects in “I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians” (Diana Popa, Tallinn University)

We hope many will find this forum thought-provoking and that it produces plenty of discussion and future avenues for research. Thank you to everyone who has provided advice and support along the way.

SEEJ 67.3 Note: The full text of SEEJ articles and reviews can be accessed via Ebscohost if you are affiliated with an institution that subscribes to the journal.AATSEEL members receive print copies of each issue.