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Politics of Memory and Nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2021

Olga Malinova*
Affiliation:
HSE University, Moscow, Russia; Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
*
*Corresponding author. Email: omalinova@hse.ru

Abstract

Scholars of nationalism knew about the role of memory and forgetting in nation building long before the contemporary boom of memory studies. Still, they can learn a lot from this relatively new research field. This article offers an overview of the literature on the politics of memory, focusing on different patterns of dealing with a dark past of genocides, civil wars, and political repressions, on the one hand, and on the observations derived from the recent so-called “memory wars” in Europe, on the other. Both issues elucidate a persistent role of nationalism in the contemporary world.

Type
State of the Field
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Association for the Study of Nationalities

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