period and does not allow for the confrontation level discussions have not put an end to the heated
of different interpretations of communism, their debates on the comparison of the Holocaust with
activities appear politically biased. As a result, their other forms of mass violence. Quite the opposite,
impact in the EP is limited to a very specific segment in fact: the controversy over communism, which
– the post-communist conservatives – while their tests the European institutions’ capacity to produce
symbolic resonance in the general public is restricted a consensual historical narrative while integrating
to the former Eastern bloc. new states, illustrates the persisting difficulties of
On the European continent, the remembrance
actions dedicated to the victims of socialist
establishing common ground for a shared culture of
memory on the European continent.
crimes are far less visible than the tributes to the
victims of Nazi atrocities. It is very telling that 23
August, established in 2009 in the EU as ‘Day of
Remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian
and authoritarian regimes’, failed to gain the
References
same symbolic significance as the ‘International
Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims
of the Holocaust’ on 27 January. Although the
EU Commissioner in charge of remembrance
makes a speech every year on 23 August, official
commemorations are organised in only nine member
states, most of them countries directly affected by
the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Despite their ongoing
mobilisations, therefore, the vision of history put
forward by anti-communist memory entrepreneurs
will have a regional, rather than pan-European,
significance.
Almost 30 years after the fall of socialism,
mimetic rivalry still permeates European-level
historical debates, which remain structured around
two diverging accounts of the past. In the first,
the Holocaust is seen as a unique form of mass
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de Politicas y Bienes Publicos, CCHS-CSIC.
DROIT Emmanuel (2007) “Le Goulag contre la Shoah. Mémoires officielles
et cultures mémorielles dans l’Europe élargie”, Vingtième siècle, 94, pp.
101-120.
LAIGNEL-LAVASTINE Alexandra (1999) “Fascisme et communisme en
Roumanie : enjeux et usages d’une comparaison”, in Stalinisme et nazisme
: histoire et mémoire comparée, edited by Henry Rousso, Brussels, Editions
Complexe, pp. 201-247.
LEGGEWIE Claus (2008), “A Tour of the Battleground: The Seven Circles of
Pan-European Memory”, Social Research 75, pp.217-234.
Littoz-Monnet, Annabelle (2012), “The EU politics of remembrance: Can
Europeans remember together?”, West European Politics, 35(5), pp.
1182–1202.
NEUMAYER Laure (2018), The Criminalization of communism in the European
Political Space after the Cold War, London, Routledge.
OLICK Jeffrey (2007), The Politics of Regret, On Collective Memory and
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violence and as the negative symbol of a ‘new
Europe’ based on protecting human rights; while
the second demands, in the name of the universality
of human rights, that the gravity of socialist crimes
be recognised as equivalent. In an attempt to find a
middle ground between these two narratives, the EU
and the Council of Europe have produced a historical
memory based on a broad denunciation of ‘all forms
of totalitarianism that existed in Europe in the 20th
century’ and on the commemoration of their victims.
The very fact that this under-specification was
necessary to avert controversies over the rankings of
different painful pasts confirms that the European-
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