Memory Laws, Memory Wars
The Politics of the Past in Europe and Russia

A major contribution to our understanding of present-day historical consciousness through a study of memory laws across Europe.

Nikolay Koposov (Author)

9781108419727, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 October 2017

336 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.4 cm, 0.63 kg

'Koposov's book provides a foundational text in European memory laws, recalling known arguments and shedding new light on the power these laws can have on a country's self-consciousness and national identity, as well as on its foreign policy in Eastern Europe … His book is timely as it offers an additional layer of understanding to policy making and national narrative making, particularly in countries which have recently been experiencing a democratic backsliding.' Jennifer Ostojski, Interdisciplinary Political Studies

Laws against Holocaust denial are perhaps the best-known manifestation of the present-day politics of historical memory. In Memory Laws, Memory Wars, Nikolay Koposov examines the phenomenon of memory laws in Western and Eastern Europe, Ukraine, and Russia and exposes their very different purposes in the East and West. In Western Europe, he shows how memory laws were designed to create a common European memory centred on the memory of the Holocaust as a means of integrating Europe, combating racism, and averting national and ethnic conflicts. In Russia and Eastern Europe, by contrast, legislation on the issues of the past is often used to give the force of law to narratives which serve the narrower interests of nation states and protect the memory of perpetrators rather than victims. This will be essential reading for all those interested in ongoing conflicts over the legacy of the Second World War, Nazism, and communism.

Introduction
1. The rise of memory and the origins of memory laws
2. Memory laws in Western Europe
3. Memory laws in Eastern Europe
4. Memory laws in Ukraine
5. Memory laws in Yeltsin's Russia
6. Memory laws in Putin's Russia
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], History of ideas [JFCX], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]