The Burden of the Past: History, Memory, and Identity in Contemporary Ukraine

In a century marked by totalitarian regimes, genocide, mass migrations, and shifting borders, the concept of memory in Eastern Europe is often synonymous with notions of trauma. In Ukraine, memory mechanisms were disrupted by political systems seeking to repress and control the past in order to form new national identities supportive of their own agendas. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, memory in Ukraine was released, creating alternate visions of the past, new national heroes, and new victims. This release of memories led to new conflicts and "memory wars." How does the past exist in contemporary Ukraine? The works collected in The Burden of the Past focus on commemorative practices, the politics of history, and the way memory influences Ukrainian politics, identity, and culture. The works explore contemporary memory culture in Ukraine and the ways in which it is being researched and understood. Drawing on work from historians, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and political scientists, the collection represents a truly interdisciplinary approach. Taken together, the groundbreaking scholarship collected in The Burden of the Past provides insight into how memories can be warped and abused, and how this abuse can have lasting effects on a country seeking to create a hopeful future.

Table of Contents:
Introduction / Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper and Anna Wylegała Part I: The Memory of Holodomor 1. Idle, Drunk and Good-for-Nothing. Cultural Memory of the Rank-and-File Perpetrators of the 1932-1933 Famine in Ukraine / Daria Mattingly 2. The lieux de mémoire of the Holodomor in the Cultural Landscape of Modern Ukraine / Wiktoria Kudela-Świątek Part II: World War II in the Ukrainian Memory 3. The War of Memory in Times of War: 9th of May Celebrations in Kyiv in 2014–2015 / Tetiana Pastushenko 4. (In)different Memory: The World War II in the Memory of the Last War Generation in Ukraine / Mykola Borovyk Part III: Heroes or Traitors: Creating Heroic Canon 5. Symon Petliura, the Ukrainian People's Republic, and National Commemoration in Contemporary Ukraine / Matthew D. Pauly 6. Glory to the Heroes? Gender, Nationalism and Memory / Olesya Khromeychuk Part IV: Traces of the Lost Multiethnicity and Memory of the Ethnic Cleansing 7. Memory, Monuments and the Project of Nationalization in Ukraine. The Case of Chernivtsi / Karolina Koziura 8. Collective Memory of the Holocaust in Post-Soviet Ukraine / Anna Chebotariova 9. Extermination of the Roma in Transnistria during the World War II: Construction of the Roma Collective Memory / Anna Abakunova 10. Poland and Poles in the Collective Memory of Galician Ukrainians / Anna Wylegała Part V: History and Politics in a Post-Soviet State: Ukraine, Russia and Independence 11. Ukraine between the EU and Russia since 1991: Does it have to be a Battlefield of Memories? / Tomasz Stryjek 12. A Desired but Unexpected State. The 90s in the Memory and Perception of Ukrainians in the Twenty-First Century / Joanna Konieczna-Sałamatin

About the Author :
Anna Wylegała is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences. She is author of Displacement and Memory: Remembering and Forgetting in Ukrainian Galicia and Polish 'Recovered Lands.' Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper is Associate Professor at the Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw. She is author of Transmisja pamięci. Działacze sfery pamięci i przekaz o Kresach Wschodnich we współczesnej Polsce (The transmission of memory: memory activists and narratives of former Eastern Borderlands in contemporary Poland).

Review :
"The Burden of the Past is a milestone of the scholarship about Eastern European politics of memory and a compelling plea for the need to further de-Westernize the field of memory studies."—Wulf Kansteiner "This book is an important stepstone in both memory and Ukrainian studies. By posting new questions and introducing new categories of analysis, it makes us to rethink us what is Ukraine and how its troublesome past can be overcome for a better future."—Yaroslav Hrytsak, Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv "This book is a welcome addition to a growing body of scholarly literature on Ukrainian identity and memory politics. . . . The two editors can be commended for having produced an excellent book, an important addition to ongoing discussions of Ukrainian memory politics in Ukraine."—Taras Kuzio, National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy,Ukraine, Europe - Asia Studies "This volume, edited by Anna Wylegała and Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper, presents a remarkably consistent scholarly concept and a clear civic, or even political, agenda. . . . Both scholars of Ukraine and memory studies specialists will enjoy this solid and thought-provoking volume, which it is to be hoped will succeed in influencing ongoing conversations in Ukraine on such important topics for the future of the country."—Alessandro Achilli, Monash University, Modern Language Review "Using an interdisciplinary approach, Anna Wylegała and Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper have succeeded in assembling a well-selected array of fieldwork and comparative research that explores hidden and forbidden memory of Ukraine's recent past. They have also effectively questioned how political as well as sociocultural and religious markers of today's identities polarize Ukrainian society given the lack of a common frame of reference and unhealed wounds. . . . It is a milestone collection of memories and testimonies of those who still remember and those who have forgotten; of those who continue to look critically at the present without forgetting their past."—Francesco Trupia, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland, Harvard Ukranian Studies