A right to remember, a right to forget

As rightly pointed out by Michael Bernhard and Jan Kubik, authors of the exhausting and compelling academic inquiry into the Eastern European post-transitional memory landscape Twenty Years After Communism (2014), for the current-day historical revisionists “the problems of the present and the future cannot be effectively addressed unless the whole polity is set on the proper foundations constructed according to the true vision of history”. As a result, alternative visions and narratives need to be destroyed or, at least, delegitimised. Thus memory, politicised and weaponised as a tool of partisanship, is no longer a sporadic substitute topic of public debate, but an integral part of the day-to-day governance.

A mnemonic conflict

Luckily, the academic community has proven itself capable of providing novel, efficient analytical tools to understand the processes of shaping collective memory and turning it into a political framework for governance. The very discipline of memory studies – a hybrid of sociology, social psychology, anthropology and various streams of legal studies – represents a growing area of academic research propagating new theorems and explanatory concepts. Despite that growing variance, however, most of these theories rely on the discipline’s foundational pillars, much easier to comprehend for the lay audience. In simplistic terms, the entire notion of studying memory through societal lenses relies on the constructivist assumption that unless time machines are finally invented, memory itself does not exist. Memory is not a tangible item, a fixed point of reference. On the contrary, memory is what one makes of it. That is why, when speaking of collective memory and mnemonic regimes in a society, so many of their elements quickly turn into a hotly debated political issue.

It is virtually impossible for any assembly of humans – a society, family, team of colleagues working together – to avoid a dispute over their collective memory. Be that as it may, such a state of affairs – defined in the sociology of memory literature as a “mnemonic conflict” – although indispensable, can, of course, vary in scope and intensity. The post-transitional countries of Central and Eastern Europe are a prime example of that modality, offering a plethora of different approaches to settling their non-democratic past. A multitude of factors, ranging from personal disputes among leaders to the degree of a previous system’s oppressiveness, can influence the scale and size of memory under dispute. Given that, however, some questions come immediately to mind: How can we reduce the collateral damage in the memory conflict? Are there systemic tools that can successfully prevent the emergence of historical revisionism? Can we codify memory, just as we codify laws and thus regulate any other area of public life? Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias, Uladzislau Belavusau and other contributors of this edited volume on memory laws make a courageous attempt to provide positive answers to these questions.

The book Law and Memory: Towards Legal Governance of History – which is a culmination of years of academic research on both domestic and international regulations concerning legal attempts of sanctioning history and ways of commemorating tragic events such as genocide – covers an impressively wide range of case studies. Apart from the perennial examples, such as the mainstream cases of memory studies in Germany, Russia, and the countries of Latin America’s Southern Cone (post-dictatorial Argentina, Chile and Uruguay), the volume also encompasses essays on national approaches to memory laws in Canada, Greece, Romania and Peru, among others. Such an unprecedented variety of domestic memory regimes allows the reader to understand not only the simple fact that dealing with the past is not exclusively a domain of countries that carry the burden of non-democratic regimes, but also that different ideological starting points can oftentimes yield comparable, if not very similar, results. In simpler terms, it is not without solid grounds to pursue a comparative analysis of post-dictatorial Latin American countries and some Eastern Europe’s post-communist states. Despite them coming from opposing ideological heritages, they frequently use the same legal tools to establish a narrative over their past and collective history.

Concrete approach

One of the volume’s biggest strengths is its focus on memory laws – a relatively new, and still understudied, sub-area of memory studies. It concerns legal acts that regulate how we talk about particular events or processes from the past. And it is not just about the past of our country, but the past of humanity as a whole – as illustrated with the book’s chapters on international regulations concerning genocide recognition or Holocaust denial. As a result, the subject of this edited volume turns out to be a very rigid, quantifiable area of inquiry. Contrary to many aspects of memory studies, dominated by interpretative debates and rather vague disputes over the involvement of the state in shaping collective attitudes towards the past, memory laws are very concrete and straightforward. They provide definitions and cite examples from the past, which definitely helps navigate the sometimes muddy waters of the permanent dilemma between remaining neutral and avoiding historical revisionism in memory politics.

Memory laws are very concrete and so is this book. The style of writing leaves the reader with an impression that not a single word goes to waste. Although the language is sometimes a little too dry, it nevertheless leaves no theme unspoken or uncovered. Undoubtedly in places the book misses, or considerably reduces, the historical contexts and societal complexities of the case study countries (especially the chapters on Canada and Peru), and it leaves the reader without a sufficient explanation as to why some of the countries are subjects of interest in memory studies at all. Perhaps what is missing the most is a coherent, short introduction dedicated to describing the systemic features of the particular past that a given country’s memory laws address. In the authors’ defence, however, it is necessary to remind ourselves that, after all, this volume was written by (and primarily for) lawyers, not historians, sociologists or scholars of culture.

A memory warrior

That very fact is echoed in the primary conclusion that is to be drawn immediately from reading Law and Memory; that, perhaps in contrast to the dominant belief widespread in Central and Eastern Europe, it is actually possible to develop systemic tools and ramifications that later define the boundaries of collective memory. Memory laws are the tools that draw the lines, within which each country’s authority can later colour as it pleases. The existence of these lines (as well as respect for them) and awareness that crossing them equals punishment, is a toolkit for a relatively stable memory regime.

In their absence, each new authority can quickly become what sociologists define as a “memory warrior” – a revisionist political actor who sees no room for compromise over collective memory. The volume’s focus on case studies and the overall message it transmits – that it is indeed possible to have laws on memory that bring more stability than chaos – ought to be echoed with particular power especially in Central and Eastern Europe. This part of the world has grown comfortable in a popular yet ungrounded belief that when it comes to memory, each subsequent government will – and is allowed to – change the narrative. Why bother? Besides, history will always be written by the winners. Moreover, we tend to associate the state’s attempt of sanctioning collective memory with the personal feuds and quarrels of the politicians in charge. And, truth be told, in numerous instances this juxtaposition is correct. Driven by individual disputes, rulers change the interpretations of a nation’s entire history in order to prove their point on one particular issue. Memory laws are supposed to prevent those ill-suited modalities. And, as illustrated in Belavusau and Gliszczyńska-Grabias’s volume, they oftentimes do.

But what if the laws do not prevent this from happening? Perhaps the weakest point of the book (which, in fact, is really a recommendation for further research than actual criticism) is its failure to address poorly written memory laws. Regulations and bills often end up creating more harm and attribute disproportionate amounts of punishment. Examples from most recent political developments in the region show that instead of consolidating the memory regime, such bad memory laws can further exacerbate the existing cleavages and conflicts. All of these observations prove that today in Central and Eastern Europe, the past is here to stay. What we do with the memory of it – that question still remains open.

Mateusz Mazzini is a doctoral candidate at the Polish Academy of Sciences, formerly a visiting doctoral scholar at the University College London. His research project focuses on the collective memory of the non-democratic past in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Book review, memory laws, Memory policy