Дискурс Пи (Jan 2021)
Historical Memory and Supranational Identity in Western European States
Abstract
The strategy of the historical memory of Western Europe has undergone significant changes over the past few decades, having gone the path from recognizing one's own responsibility and guilt for the Holocaust as a central element of the historical memory of Western European liberal democracies to supporting and fully adopting politics of memory of post-communist states, based on "occupation rhetoric", symbolism and victimization of Eastern European states. The article attempts to identify some specific features of the development of the West European politics of memory as an area ofsymbolic policy that contributes to the formation of a supranational identity. The main research methods were the analysis of the literature on the politics of memory, comparative analysis, analysis of media sources; partly applied historical analysis. The scientific novelty of the article isin highlighting the specific features of the Western European project of historical memory, considered in its transformation. The author concludes that, firstly, the transformation of historical memory was influenced by the enlargement of the European Union in 2004 and 2007, when the national framework of historical memory of Eastern European countries became dominant throughout the EU, gradually replacing the Western European model of historical memory. Secondly, supranational identity in Western European liberal democracies could rely on the original version of collective memory based on the Holocaust, but as a result of its inability to encompass the entire expanded European Union, collective memory became a stumbling block in the construction of a pan-European identity. Thirdly, there is a change in the nature and essence of historical memory, that occurred due to the transfer of the politics of memory to the post-truth space, which led to an emphasis on symbolism, emotional coloring of interpretations of historical events and the reduction of history to the "right" level as opposed to the initial sense of collective responsibility and awareness of one's own guilt underlying Western European historical memory.
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