Book review: Naum Trajanovski, Petar Todorov, Biljana Volchevska and Ljupcho S. Risteski (eds.), "Cultures and Politics of Remembrance: Southeast European and Balkan Perspectives". Skopje: forum ZFD, 2021, 132 pp. ISBN 978-608-4956-04-4

Abstract

This presentation reviews a recent volume in the field of memory studies, focusing on Balkan historical experiences and perspectives, edited by Naum Trajanovski (PhD in sociology), Petar Todorov (PhD in history, Institute of National History in Skopje), Biljana Volchevska (NGO programme coordinator and PhD candidate in philosophy) and Ljupčo S. Risteski (professor at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology in Skopje). The volume was published in 2021 by the civil peace organisation Forum Ziviler Friedensdienst, Skopje branch, and researched within the framework of a project aimed at creating a platform for the collaboration of academic workers during the pandemic, in 2020. In 12 texts, the authors explore regional and local conflicts and reconciliation processes in Southeast Europe. The common characteristic of all the texts in the publication is the prevailing and almost didactically positioned awareness of epistemic problems in memory studies and historiography – a cohesive aspect of the volume that continuously attracted my attention...

Keywords

• culture of remembrance
• memory politics
• Balkans