Twenty Years After Communism

Michael D. Kennedy, Professor of Sociology and International Studies, Brown University Remembering a nation's past shapes its future. We should know this in our bones, but thanks to Bernhard, Kubik, and their contributors, we have both theory and method to approach it analytically across the world, and inspired empirical studies of the post-communist world. One of the best volumes I have read in years. It is required reading for those who want to understand how cultural politics matter.

Jeffrey K. Olick, Professor of Sociology and History, University of Virginia In contrast to most studies of collective memory, which usually focus on one or a small handful of cases, Twenty Years After Communism systematically compares 17 cases of Eastern European memory of 1989. In order to do so, it develops a rigorous theoretical framework for studying 'official memory' in postcommunist countries. Both its conceptual introduction and the individual chapters mark a significant advance in social scientific memory studies and in understanding of this crucial region. It is sure to be a landmark volume.

Jan-Werner Muller, Professor of Politics, Princeton University Memory studies' has become a crowded area of scholarship, with much rather sentimental work and too many books mechanically reproducing existing approaches. This volume is different: it offers an original theory of 'memory regimes' and uses it to compare the commemorations of 1989 across Central and Eastern Europe. The resulting chapters are a treasure trove of insights into the political cultures of post-communist countries.

Ferenc Lacz, Europe-Asia Studies provides in-depth expertise on the politics of memory and commemoration in 17 countries

Michael Bernhard is Raymond and Miriam Ehrlich Chair of Political Science at the University of Florida. Jan Kubik is Professor and Chair of Political Science at Rutgers University.

List of Figures and Tables ; List of Pictures ; Acknowledgments ; Contributor list ; Introduction - Michael Bernhard and Jan Kubik ; Chapter 1: A Theory of the Politics of Memory - Jan Kubik and Michael Bernhard ; Part I: Fractured Memory Regimes ; Chapter 2: Revolutionary Road: 1956 and the Fracturing of Hungarian Historical Memory - Anna Seleny ; Chapter 3: Roundtable Discord: The Contested Legacy of 1989 in Poland - Michael Bernhard and Jan Kubik ; Chapter 4: Romania Twenty Years after 1989: The Bizarre Echoes of a Contested Revolution - Grigore Pop-Eleches ; Chapter 5: I Ignored Your Revolution, but You Forgot My Anniversary: Party Competition in Slovakia and the Construction of Recollection - Carol Skalnik Leff, Kevin Deegan-Krause, and Sharon L. Wolchik ; Chapter 6: Remembering the Revolution: Contested Pasts in the Baltic Countries - Daina S. Eglitis and Laura Ardava ; Chapter 7: Memories of the Past and Visions of the Future: Remembering the Soviet Era and its End in Ukraine - Oxana Shevel ; Part II: Pillarized Memory Regimes ; Chapter 8: Remembering, Not Commemorating, 1989: The 20-Year Anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in the Czech Republic - Conor O'Dwyer ; Part III: Unified Memory Regimes ; Chapter 9: Making Room for November 9, 1989? The Fall of the Berlin Wall in German Politics and Memory - David Art ; Chapter 10: The Inescapable Past: The Politics of Memory in Postcommunist Bulgaria - Venelin I. Ganev ; Chapter 11: Lives of Others: Commemorating 1989 in the Former Yugoslavia - Aida A. Hozi? ; Part IV: Conclusions ; The Politics and Culture of Memory Regimes: A Comparative Analysis - Michael Bernhard and Jan Kubik ; Appendices ; Bibliography ; Index