A conversation with Tomas Venclova, Lithuanian philosopher and writer. Interviewer: Nikodem Szczyglowski

The Tatars of Poland remain one of the country’s most enduring ethnic minorities. Arriving in the area as early as the 14th century, this group has maintained its own distinctiveness while adapting to many wider Polish customs. This process has involved as much positive as negative developments.

Had you, 30 or 40 years ago, visited Kruszyniany, a village near the Belarusian border that is home to one of the two traditional Tatar settlements in Poland, you would have encountered the tranquil rhythm of community life centred around bayrams (a Turkic word for festivals or celebrations). In Muslim tradition, religious holidays are moments for families to gather in prayer at a mosque or a cemetery (mizar). To join their relatives in these celebrations, descendants of Tatars from all around Poland would flock to Kruszyniany. However, once the festivities were over, only a few Tatar families stayed in the village, enjoying its tranquillity and the slow pace of life.

Kosovo’s identity remains highly contested in spite of its declaration of independence all the way back in 2008. While many still hold on to an ethnic conception of the state, people like the musician and intellectual Migjen Kelmendi want a new country with new values. This aim can be traced back to a cultural milieu that overcame the divisions of Yugoslavia.

I met the journalist and writer Migjen Kelmendi in the Charlie Brown café near Bill Clinton Boulevard in Pristina, Kosovo. Forty years have passed since he founded the band Gjurmët, but the thin smile of the first Kosovar Albanian rock icon is still there. In the 1960s, Yugoslavia welcomed rock-n-roll, organized festivals and promoted Yugoslav artists via the Yugoton label. An unprecedented rock scene emerged during the following decade: Zagreb, Belgrade, Ljubljana and Sarajevo became vibrant centres where punk and new wave flourished. Often mobilized by the state apparatus, the youth used rock to voice new aspirations. 

It is rare to find books on Bulgarian history in the English language – it is even more uncommon to come across works of fiction with a historical twist which are set in Bulgaria. Ellis Shuman’s Rakiya: Stories of Bulgaria shines a light on the idiosyncrasies of Bulgarian life and rich historical heritage while exposing angles on Bulgarian mentality of which the country’s citizens are often oblivious.

For years, Hungary’s Fidesz government under Viktor Orbán has employed historical revisionism and irredentist symbols in domestic politics. The notion of “Greater Hungary” and grievances over the loss of territories due to the Treaty of Trianon, as well as referring to it as a national trauma, are central to this. While the strategy may help Orbán domestically, it negatively affects Hungary’s relationships with some neighbours.

“Greater Hungary”, also known as “Historic Hungary”, refers to the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the First World War. Today, the notion of Greater Hungary involves an irredentist political idea and refers to territories Hungary lost through the Paris Peace Treaty, in Hungary more commonly known as the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which ended the First World War between the Allies and Hungary.

Azerbaijan’s fight to regain control of the disputed Karabakh region has included more than fighting on the frontline. Throughout the three decades between the main Karabakh conflicts, Baku has attempted to use various cultural elements to promote its cause both at home and abroad.

The war in Ukraine strengthened the de-Sovietisation process already taking place in Eastern Europe. It has pushed states to further remove the remnants of the Soviet past, including monuments, which are believed to have ideological symbolism and play a significant role in shaping collective identity.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s actions have been discussed not only as a brutal violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of a neighbouring state, but also as a continuation of Russian imperial policy and a desire to rebuild the Soviet Union. Yet, amidst the war in Ukraine, Eastern Europe showed its powerful counter-desire to be freed from the Soviet past and Russian influence.

The geopolitical conceptions of Vladimir Putin are strikingly reminiscent of the visions of Friedrich Ratzel, Karl Haushofer and especially Joseph Stalin. Putin basically thinks the same things as these figures but needs more justification. This is where a “memory masquerade” comes in, involving Nazism, racism, antisemitism and a reminder of the origins of Russia's greatness. The portfolio of historical and memorial references does not stop at European history for Russia.

On June 28th 2005 the Warsaw-based Batory Foundation organised a conference titled “Memory and Foreign Policy”. During this event, Bronisław Geremek, a historian and Poland’s former minister of foreign affairs, asked a question as to whether collective memory is part of foreign policy. His answer was the following: "I think it is a part of international relations, for example when governments protest when national dignity is attacked. Of course, it is a part of international negotiations, for example to open access to archives … but all this is only marginal in foreign policy.” We shall see whether this marginality of memory is true today.

Debates over the events of the Bosnian War remain a contentious topic in modern Bosnia and Herzegovina. While competing narratives continue to divide society at an everyday level, the international community must take action to promote a shared future for the divided country.

There is no model approach to dealing with how to commemorate controversial figures in the post-Soviet world. Estonia could provide an example for countries in the region on how to counter an often deafening silence.

In the current Russian war in Ukraine, history and the historical narratives underpinning the conflict are featuring front and centre. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has been very effective in his use of historical references, especially when addressing international audiences.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent fighting in that country have been accompanied by an avalanche of historical rhetoric from both sides, underlining just how important narratives about the past are for this conflict. As Joseph Nye reminds us: “Conventional wisdom has always held that the state with the largest military prevails, but in the information age it may be the state (or non-states) with the best story that wins.”

Despite contentious differences in memory, Polish-Ukrainian relations have remained close and notably strong in important national moments. This reflects two aspects of Polish society: a generation of youth acclimated to supporting Ukrainian sovereignty with compassion, and a national memory politics which allows humanitarianism, but only when it fits into a politically suitable narrative.

In 2003 the Polish philosopher and historian of ideas Leszek Kołakowski gave a speech at the American Library of Congress titled, “What the Past is For”. Kołakowski believed that history serves not to predict the future nor to gain technical advice on how to deal with the present, but to discover the values constitutive of human identities. He told his listeners that “to say that [the events of the past] do not matter to our lives would be almost as silly as saying that it would not matter to me if I were suddenly to erase from my memory my own past personal life … The history of past generations is our history, and we need to know it in order to be aware of our identity; in the same sense in which my own memory builds my personal identity, makes me a human subject.”