Examining both the countries of the former Soviet bloc ‒ Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, the former Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic ‒ and the area of the former Yugoslavia and Albania, where communist regimes but not aligned with the USSR were established, the monographic issue of Qualestoria aims to investigate how, in the course of the now thirty-five years that have passed since 1989, the cultures of memory and the official memory policies promoted by the institutions have changed, questioning also the public use of the history of communism. The issue invites potential contributors to submit essay proposals that develop both analyses of individual country cases and comparative approaches.

Qualestoria journal

«Qualestoria», a journal of the IRSREC FVG (Regional Institute for the History of the Resistance and theContemporary Age in Friuli Venezia Giulia), hosts contributions by Italian and foreign authors, promoting thepublication of monographic and miscellaneous issues. The journal traditionally – but not exclusively – proposestopics related to the contemporary history of the Upper Adriatic and border areas, paying particular attention tothe study and historiography of the countries of Central-Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

Argument

The year 1989 constituted a caesura in the field of European and world history, which also affectedthe politics and cultures of memory. In Southern and East-Central Europe, the collapse of communistregimes brought with it a “liberation of memory”, breaking the previous official narratives that hadbeen established after the end of the Second World War. The anti-fascist paradigm, from “foundingmyth” and State ideology, was eroded and undermined, replacing resistance heroism with an emphasison victims, both of Nazism and communism. Moreover, the assertion of an anti-totalitarian paradigmled in some cases to equating Nazism and communism, especially in terms of repressive practices andthe use of terror.In the post-communist countries, albeit with different national narratives, some common trendlines were established. An exclusively negative reading of the communist period prevailed, obscuringmore articulate judgements that positively evaluated certain aspects of it, such as the modernisation ofthe economy or forms of social protection. In the countries that had been part of the Soviet bloc,communism was predominantly described as a phenomenon imposed from outside and extraneous tonational history, allowing post-communist societies to be presented exclusively as victims, andobscuring the question of consensus, such as the multifaceted phenomena of adherence, acceptance, orcollaboration with the regimes. Lastly, the reinterpretation of the Second World War and the communist experience has often been declined by accentuating a reading with nationalist traits, which in the pre-eminence given to the national anti-communist struggle has sometimes led to the rehabilitation of supporters of Nazism, also responsible for anti-Jewish persecution (see the case of Marshal Antonescu in Romania).

Examining both the countries of the former Soviet bloc ‒ Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, the former Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic ‒ and the area of the former Yugoslavia and Albania, where communist regimes but not aligned with the USSR were established, the monographic issue of «Qualestoria» aims to investigate how, in the course of the now thirty-five years that have passed since 1989, the cultures of memory and the official memory policies promoted by the institutions have changed, questioning also the public use of the history of communism. How did the different political actors rework the experience of communism after the collapse of the regimes? Is it possible to identify periodizations within the past thirty-five years? Have different judgments been established with respect to national regimes and the USSR? Has the memory of communism in the former Yugoslavia and Albania developed along different paradigms, compared to that of the countries belonging to the Soviet bloc? Has the entry of the former communist countries into the European Union led to changes in the memory of communism?

The monographic issue of «Qualestoria» invites potential contributors to submit essay proposals that develop both analyses of individual country cases and comparative approaches. «Qualestoria» evaluates proposals focusing on one or more of the following aspects:

- Commemorations and national anniversaries;

- Places of remembrance and museums;

- School manuals;

- Historiographical disputes;

- Political conflicts related to the memory of communism;

- The memory of 1989 and the end of the communist experience.

How to submit and article

Authors may submit a proposal to participate in the monographic issue. The abstract, with a maximum length of 1500 characters (including spaces) must be sent to qualestoria@irsrecfvg.eu 

by 30 March 2024;

acceptance or rejection of the proposal will be communicated by 7 April 2024. The deadline for submitting articles is 30 June 2024. Contributions will be published in the issue 2/2024 of the journal. Abstracts and essays can be written in Italian and English. Essays will be subjected to an anonymous double-blind peer review; they should be between 40,000 and 60,000 characters (including notes and spaces) and comply with the editorial rules and instructions for authors that will be provided.

For any additional information, please write to: qualestoria@irsrecfvg.eu 

Selection

Costanza Calabretta, research fellow at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

Costanza Calabretta graduated in Contemporary History at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, where she later obtained her doctorate, after a period of study in Berlin as a visiting student at the Freie University. Her research, dedicated to the memory of reunification and peaceful revolution in Germany, was published under the title Rivoluzione pacifica e Unità. Celebrazioni e culture della memoria in Germania 1990-2015 (Viella, 2019).

Between 2021 and 2023 she was a research fellow at the Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici in Rome, with a project on cultural relations between Italy and the German Democratic Republic, dedicated to deepening the contacts between the two countries during the Cold War. 

She is currently a research fellow at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, where she is working on relations between Italian and German nationalists in the period between the two world wars.

Her main research interests are the history of contemporary Germany; questions of public memory, especially after ‘89; the cultural history of the Cold War.