Understanding Identity through the Memory of European Communism

Voicing Memories, Unearthing Identities. Studies in the Twenty-First-Century Literatures of Eastern and East-Central Europe, edited by Aleksandra Konarzewska and Anna Nakai, Wilmington, DE, Vernon Press, 2023

Abstract

Voicing Memories, Unearthing Identities: Studies in the Twenty-First Century Literatures of Eastern and East-Central Europe is an interdisciplinary contribution by female scholars from universities in Europe, the United States of America and Japan to cultural memory studies, analyzing how literature engages with memory to express the untellable and present the historical processes that shaped identities. Edited by Aleksandra Konarzewska and Anna Nakai, the volume draws on theoretical frameworks from Hannah Arendt, Astrid Erll, Marianne Hirsch, and Ann Rigney, among others, to explore themes of identity, trauma, and historical reconstruction.

The book is divided into three sections—Creating Identity, Conflicting Identity, and Preserving Identity—and includes a final section on Ukrainian literature in response to the renewed interest in Ukrainian literature since the beginning of the war against Russia in 2022. Contributions examine the role of literature in post-Soviet and post-Communist memory, Jewish-Polish identity, digital memory storytelling, the reconstruction of forgotten histories as well as the impact of silencing and lies in the construction of the identity. There is a  dominance of Polish literature over other Eastern literatures and an overemphasis on the novel, limiting the book’s intended breadth. Despite these shortcomings, the volume expands research on semi-peripheral European literatures and engages with new memory debates. It offers valuable insights while leaving room for further expansion in scope and literary diversity.