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This article discusses films made during Georgia's first period of independence (1918-21), focusing on the newsreel series known as the Independence Chronicles (1918-20) by Germane Gogiditze. Imperatives around state consolidation and internationalism are clearly, although sometimes implicitly, visible in that series. The same disputes that define discussions of Georgia and of the post-Soviet world today--multiethnic nationalism, European outlooks, and so on--were very much part of the debates during this earlier period and are arguably being publically negotiated for the first time in this independently produced series of documentaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article inquires why the Allied bombing of Sofia in the winter of 1943/1944, the most devastating trauma to hit Bulgaria's capital city, left no permanent mark on public and historical memory. It reconstructs the little-known events of early 1944 and then analyzes how specific social and cultural factors combined with political and international realities to delineate the boundaries within which the bombing could be collectively remembered and commemorated. The author argues for the importance of studies of the Allied bombing campaign in Eastern Europe for a proper understanding of World War II and the postwar history of the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This historical ethnography of music-making in an interwar Istanbul neighborhood aims to expand our understanding of Turkish Jewish women and their musical lives. Jewish religious law historically excluded women's voices from prayer services, and past ethnomusicological scholarship has separated gendered music-making into two distinct categories: male-Hebrew-liturgical and female-Ladino-folk. Using oral history methods interwoven with memoirs and urban histories, I elucidate the participation of Jewish girls and women in musical life on the street, at home, and in synagogue, exposed to the ambient Turkish art music forms underpinning Hebrew-language religious music sung in synagogues. By investigating the neighborhood as historical 'soundscape,' the study expands our understanding of indirect exposures and direct learning opportunities for girls and contributes to re-theorizing gender and Jewish music-making. Moreover, the life story of Janti Behar illuminates how one woman negotiated the space between gendered community musical expectations and a changing Turkish society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes "The Narrative of the Late George Vason," an early-nineteenth-century narrative of George Vason who is an English beachcomber and was converted to Christianity as an adult under the influence of the Evangelical Revival. Departure of the narrative from standard beachcomber texts that present themselves as part adventure tale, part travel initiative and part ethnographic observation; Spatialization of the defection of Vason from British civility in his movement from the missionary site to Mulikiha'amea's fale; Emphasis on Vason's cultural transgression in taking on traditional Tongan dress.

Andrei Andreevich Vlasov, a Soviet general who sought to create a Russian Liberation Army under German auspices during World War II, has been the focal point of debates about wartime collaboration that reflect deep divides in memory of the Great Patriotic War and the Stalin era in post-Soviet Russia. Memory entrepreneurs in the literary world, the Orthodox Church and the historical profession have reappropriated Vlasov, inserting him in anti-Soviet historical narratives as a hero, symbol or martyr. Meanwhile, patriotic intellectuals in the Putin years have invoked Vlasov as a figure of national treachery and use him to discredit their political opponents. The debate over Vlasov points to the fractured and unproductive nature of national collective memory in Russia. Keywords: Russia; collaboration; Great Patriotic War; World War II; Vlasov; collective memory, Andrei Andreevich Vlasov, a Soviet general who served the Nazis after his capture in 1942, has been a source of considerable historical controversy in post-Soviet Russia. As the highest-ranking Red [...]

West Germany's record of dealing with National Socialism is often held up as a model to be emulated by states emerging out of war and mass crimes. This article traces the application of the German model to contemporary Serbia, as represented by the two tropes of 'Nuremberg' (justice) and 'Willy Brandt's Kniefall' (apology). It argues that both events were divorced from their own historical circumstances and presented as contemporaneous elements of a model that set unrealistic normative benchmarks when applied to the Serbian national context. Placing Germany's process of postwar memory construction in a historical and comparative light, rather than viewing it as an ideal-typical model to be emulated, provides a more productive way of analyzing the complexities of national memory processes in post-conflict states. Keywords: Germany; Serbia; post-conflict; transitional justice; political apology; Nuremberg; ICTY, INTRODUCTION The German model of 'coming to terms with the past' has, since the 1990s, been a key signifier in discourses and debates about memorialization and transitional justice around the [...]

The Communist Party of Yugoslavia regarded the interpretation and the commemoration of World War II as one of the most important pillars of the ideology of 'brotherhood and unity' and the socialist revolution. Accordingly, the issues of the civil war and the nationality and ethnic identity of the perpetrators and victims were suppressed. The article examines war memorials in the Yugoslav Federal Republic of Croatia to show that following the sociopolitical changes that occurred from the mid-1960s, these previously evaded issues became more prominent in public life and began to jeopardize the official policy of remembrance. Keywords: ethnicity; memorials; nationality; Jews; Roma; Socialist Republic of Croatia; Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; 'victims of fascist terror'; World War II, INTRODUCTION World War II caused human suffering on an unprecedented scale on the territory of Croatia. Its force and brutality were derived from the political conflicts that had appeared during [...]

Vladimir Putin shows remarkable interest in history in general and World War II in particular. This article explores this historian-president's attempts to codify the memory of this war in an open attempt to transmit a useful past to the younger generation. It argues that top-down models of historical memory are of little explanatory value in the Russian situation. The president rides a wave of historical revisionism that he shapes at the same time. Putin's government successfully uses it to mobilize Russian society against critical minorities within and perceived enemies without. The far-reaching consequences of this politicization for the history of World War II are sketched in the final section of the article. Keywords: Russia; World War II; Great Patriotic War; history wars; Vladimir Putin, A FAILED HISTORY EXAM On December 24, 2014, Vladimir Luzgin, a resident of Perm in the Urals, failed a history exam with fairly high stakes. He did so unknowingly, by [...]

The dramatic post-Soviet transformations have profoundly affected school education in Russia. History courses were deeply involved in this painful process. They experienced a revolutionary shift in emphasis from class struggle to nationalism and ethnocentrism. Textbooks were rewritten several times over the course of fifteen to twenty years. One of the problems faced by their authors was how to create a balanced presentation of the numerous ethnic groups that constituted the former Soviet Union in textbooks where the dominant majority was represented by ethnic Russians. In this article I demonstrate that an aspiration to depict Russia as a homogeneous civilization led to the biased representation of certain non-Russian ethnic communities., Russia is an ethno-federal state that includes, as did the USSR before it, several 'national' (i.e., ethnically based) republics in addition to provinces. The former are named after their 'titular [...]

National monuments typically serve as aesthetic manifestations of dominant visions of history and collective identity, but they can also generate a contestation of the past they are intended to cement. Defending this two-pronged interpretive approach, this essay attends to the changing symbolic power of a unique national monument--the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. The study traces the cathedral's historic role in Russia's national self-definition during the last two centuries. The cathedral's construction under tsars, destruction under Stalin, and the postcommunist rebuilding accompanied and justified a particular version of national identity. The role of the cathedral as a magnet for competing versions of Russia's traumatic past is illustrated by the controversy over its rebuilding after the collapse of the Soviet Union., Following the call of Benedict Anderson to regard nations as 'imagined communities,' scholars across the humanities have sought to investigate the formation of public memory and national identity. (1) Although [...]