Remembering Communism

"A powerful reminder of the continuing relevance of the Communist past and the complicated nature of its negotiation in public and private processes of remembering. Remembering Communism succeeds in drawing attention to the need to investigate areas of overlap between the two, especially since the memory of Communism continues to be highly politicized. Even more so, the volume draws attention to some of the most important loose ends in post-Communist studies: class memories, transmission of memory and historical knowledge, generationality and the impact of new media on the production and consumption of memories"—Slavonic & East European Review

"Dieser umfangreiche Sammelband erforscht die Erinnerung and den Kommunismus, indem er zwei Zugänge bzw. Zwei Gruppen von Theorien – einerseits über Erinnerung, andererseits über Kommunismus – verbindet. Im Mittelpunkt stehen Bulgarien und Rumänien, weil sie bisher im Vergleich zu anderen ehemals sozialistichen Staaten Europas wenig erforscht sind. Gemeinsam ist den Forschungsarbeiten, dass sie in die Perspektive aus der Gegenwart betonen. Die Aktualität und Prozesshaftigkeit der Erinnerung an den Kommunismus stehen somit im Zentrum."—Religion & Gesellschaft in Ost und West

"As someone based in the United States, where the word 'communism' is automatically and uncritically associated with the worst crimes of Stalinism, edited volumes like this one do much to make it safer for younger researchers to explore controversial topics and challenge the ideological status quo. The deep irony of studying the communist past is that democracy promised freedom of conscience and freedom of inquiry. Many institutions of higher learning laud the principle of academic freedom and resist political attempts to meddle in or direct scholarly pursuits. But in the case of the twentieth-century communist past, inquiry is hardly free, and, as Todorova points out in her introduction, the majority of scholarship produced has been funded by foundations and institutions charged with investigating the crimes of communism. For pushing back against this almost exclusive focus on the negative, Remembering Communism: Private and Public Recollections of Lived Experience in Southeast Europe is a most welcome and necessary addition to the literature."—H-Socialisms, H-Net Reviews