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Category: History and Memory

Gdańsk’s heritage and reconstruction after the war

After the Second World War, Gdańsk was fully integrated into Poland. Subsequently, the population dynamic of the city changed – many German residents fled or were expelled, and were replaced by Poles, who came especially from areas lost to the Soviets in the former eastern lands. With new rulers and a new populace in place, a question arose – what to do about the ruined city?

September 26, 2025 - Błażej Kowacz

Thirty years after the Srebrenica genocide, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains a land suspended between memory and oblivion

Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a battleground, where nationalism and ethnic divisions are highly visible. Thirty years after the war, more than 50 schools in the country are “schools under one roof”, where students are divided not only by curriculum but also physically. In one of these schools, a history teacher presents her lessons according to two different curricula.

July 8, 2025 - Tatjana Dordevic

The Vatican and the Eastern Bloc: what the Vatican archives can reveal about Cold War Europe

Five years after the Vatican unsealed its archives on the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, historians are only beginning to uncover the depth of insight they offer into the post-war transformation of Eastern Europe. Far beyond matters of church history, these documents reveal how the Holy See navigated the rise of communism, supported persecuted Catholics behind the Iron Curtain, and responded to the upheaval of millions across the continent.

In March 2020, the Vatican Apostolic Archives opened to consultation a long-awaited treasure trove of documents spanning the neuralgic years of 1939–1958. Named the Vatican Secret Archive until 2019, its extensive holdings are housed in a „bunker” — an underground storage facility in Vatican City. While scholars around the world braced for revelations concerning the Holy See’s wartime diplomacy and the Holocaust, another equally compelling and underexplored story lies within: the history of Eastern Europe during one of its most turbulent transformations from the ruins of World War II to life under state socialism, as seen by the lens of the Vatican.

July 8, 2025 - Katarzyna Nowak

I grew up hearing Ukraine’s village songs. Now we are helping young people bring them back.

A grassroots project is working to revive the dialects and folk traditions that have all but disappeared from rural Ukraine.

May 21, 2025 - Yuri Bilinsky

The end of the “Big Brother” myth in Armenia

The image of Russians as “protectors” and “saviours” has been deeply embedded in Armenian political mythology throughout the past two centuries. This mythology has been largely based on events connected to the rule of the Ottoman Empire, where Russia often positioned itself as the defender of the region’s Christian population. Armenia’s experience of the last 200 years shows that Russian imperial domination has been surprisingly resilient, having been able to reinvent itself in many ways.

May 5, 2025 - Mikayel Zolyan

Twenty-five years on, the Yeltsin Centre shows Russia’s danger

Although I have been to the Yeltsin Centre in Yekaterinburg many times for research, about half way through my last visit, I began to feel uneasy. Videos of the coup and parliament bombings touched a nerve. How quickly the situation changed then. Images of buildings around Pushkin Square in Moscow, near where I used to work, being smashed by vandals and cars alike. Such events feel unthinkable in Moscow today. In the Yeltsin Centre, I realized just how likely they could be.

Twenty-five years ago, as Boris Yeltsin resigned from his position as president of the Russian Federation, his wife and daughter were utterly relieved. The job had taken its toll in just about every way and the Yeltsins were excited to get their family life back. But Russia and the world were stunned. It came out of the blue. What next for Russia after the chaos? Nobody knew.

May 5, 2025 - James C. Pearce

Memory politics in Ukraine and Russia as a component of modern warfare

As Ukrainians took their first steps in exploring their own history, they began uncovering a wealth of previously forbidden topics and figures. Following the country’s independence, the exchange of academic research between Ukrainian and western historians became possible. This significantly contributed to shaping Ukraine’s historical policy, which was also in many cases in direct opposition to the Kremlin’s interpretation of history. Unsurprisingly, history and memory are key components of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

History and memory regarding the events of the past have always been, and still are, powerful tools in relations between Ukraine and Russia. While Russia has tried to shape its historical policy since the late Middle Ages, when Moscow declared itself the “third Rome” and pursued “the gathering of Russian lands”, modern Ukraine, which was without statehood for a long time, began to develop and restore its true history after independence in 1991. It would also develop its own historical policy. 

February 28, 2025 - Oleksii Lionchuk

On fascism

This text is a reprint of Egelbert Besednjak’s 1922 analysis of fascism after its rise to power in Italy. The text is not only a solid analysis of the process of the rise of fascism over 100 years ago, but also a reminder how the reins of power can swiftly shift in a dangerous direction, even in a democracy.

February 28, 2025 - Engelbert Besednjak

Auschwitz-Birkenau. Death at a wave of a finger

As the years pass, the last witnesses to the nightmare of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the death factory where more than a million Jews from all over Europe were exterminated, are passing away. What remains is the camp itself, and the objects within it that allow historians and conservationists to learn the stories of individuals. Their stories not only help to understand the tragedy of the victims who were exterminated here, but add a human, personal dimension to these memories.

January 27, 2025 - Bartosz Panek Jarosław Kociszewski

From Poland-Lithuania to science fiction

Science fiction is a genre that aspires to predict the human future through the lens of expected technological progress. Few realize that it emerged from the tragic experience of Poland-Lithuania’s Jewish community during the dark 20th century.

December 13, 2024 - Tomasz Kamusella

When Czechs knew freedom

The Velvet Revolution is now celebrating its 35th anniversary. This creative article commemorates the date of December 10, 1989, when the first non-communist government in Czechoslovakia since 1948 took office. It is more important than ever to remember the lessons from this time of national euphoria. This is especially true with regards to the freedoms that peoples both in and outside of Eastern Europe enjoy and often take for granted. The piece is a collage of different memories and hopes of Czech citizens from that time of new liberty--drawn from both interviews and the author's imagination.

December 10, 2024 - Gabriel M. Paletz

New documentary features memories of Srebrenica

A new documentary directed by Ado Hasanović called My Father’s Diaries brings a new perspective to the Bosnian War and the Srebrenica massacre. The film includes original footage captured during the war, as well as the reciting of passages from the diary of Hasanović’s father. It sheds new light on the extremely difficult times faced by those trying to survive the brutality of war.

Ado Hasanović does not remember every detail of the Bosnian War (1992-95). But certain memories he cannot forget. Watching his family home burning. Leaving Srebrenica. It was 1993. He was seven years old. On a UN food truck, with his mother, brother and sister, Hasanović travelled 100 kilometres north, to the city of Tuzla. “The war in Bosnia was really terrible,” the 38-year-old Bosnian filmmaker explained from central Sarajevo. “Once we escaped, we became refugees. But my father remained in Srebrenica until [July] 1995.”

November 21, 2024 - JP O'Malley

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