Replaying Communism

Lucy Jeffery is Co-Founder of the Replaying Communism project which received funding from the AHRC SWW-DTP in 2023. She has published on Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Ezra Pound, Ingeborg Bachmann, and Magda Szabó. Her monograph—Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process—was published by Ibidem in 2021. She then co-edited a special issue for the leading environmental literature journal, Green Letters, entitled ‘A New Poetics of Space’ (2022). In 2024 she was a Visegrad Fellow at Central European University and the Open Society Archives.Anna Varadi is Co-Founder of the Replaying Communism project which received funding from the AHRC SWW-DTP in 2023. She has published on media, gender, and national identity in the work of Magda Szabó, and has served as a translator from Hungarian and German for several academic projects. Since 2020, she has worked extensively with displaced people and forced migrants who are pursuing Higher Education. Anna currently works at Cardiff University, Wales.

“A must read for anyone interested in the contemporary resonance of communism and the dynamic of public history and heritage in Central and Eastern Europe.” - Sabina Mihelj, Professor of Media and Cultural Analysis, Loughborough University, UK “Replaying Communism is an invaluable contribution to the study of memory and trauma in post-socialist societies.” - Gerard Delanty, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Sussex University, UK “It is terribly difficult to be a successful opposition party today. One must accumulate a wide variety of knowledge, and this excellent volume can help with this.” - Gábor Demszky, Mayor of Budapest (1990–2010) and founding member of The Alliance of Free Democrats Hungarian Liberal Party “Replaying Communism’s theoretical underpinnings of the trauma/nostalgia paradigm can fruitfully serve as a template beyond the regional coverage of the volume.” - Maria Todorova, Professor Emerita at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, US “This volume provides a compelling intervention in contemporary memory studies.” - David Clarke, Professor of Modern German Studies, Cardiff University, UK “Replaying Communism is a compelling examination of the interplay of nostalgia and trauma that determines how contemporary cultural productions re-imagine the communist era.” - Maya Nadkarni, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Swarthmore College, US

• List of Illustrations Foreword - Aniko Imre Acknowledgements Introduction The Trauma/Nostalgia Paradigm in Post-communist Cultural Production - Lucy Jeffery and Anna Váradi Chapter 1 Drawing the Romanian Revolution at the History Museum of Brasov - Carmen Levick Chapter 2 Retelling Soviet-era Anecdotes in Russian Online Media - Kateryna Yeremieieva Chapter 3 Gábor Zsigmond Papp’s Retro Series and the Cultural Afterlife of Hungarian State Propaganda Films - Lucia Szemetová Chapter 4 Communicating Post-communist Identity through the Museum of Life Under Communism, Warsaw - Samantha Vaughn Chapter 5 -The Museumification of Victims of Communism and Bulgaria’s Belene Forced Labor Camp - Georgeta Nazarska Chapter 6 The Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, Grutas Park and Lithuania’s Narrative of the Communist Past - Katarzyna Jarosz Chapter 7 Televising Division and Reunification in the German TV Series Deutschland 89 - Lucy Jeffery and Anna Váradi Chapter 8 -Socialist Settings in Contemporary Hungarian and Czech Quality Television - Veronika Hermann Chapter 9 (Re)Playing the Hungarian Revolution in Contemporary Board Games - David Scott Diffrient and Sam Ernst Chapter 10 Uprooted Heritage as Curatorial Method and Artistic Medium in Yugoslavia- Natasa Jagdhuhn Chapter 11 Germany’s Traumatic Communist Past through Contemporary Radio Life Narratives - Iana Nikitenko Chapter 12 The Hauntology of Communism in an Estonian Computer Role-playing Game - Claus Toft-Nielsen Conclusion - Lucy Jeffery and Anna Váradi About the Authors Bibliography Index