The Memory Politics of Becoming European: The East European Subalterns and the Collective Memory of Europe

The situation in collective memory studies that share a nexus with the discipline of International Relations (IR) is currently reflective of the traditionally West-centric writing of European history. This order of things has become increasingly challenged after the eastern enlargement of the European Union (EU). This article examines Poland’s and the Baltics’ recent attempts to enlarge the mnemonic vision of ‘the united Europe’ by placing their ‘subaltern pasts’ in contest with the conventionally Western European-bent understanding of the consequences of World War II in Europe. I argue that their endeavours to wrench the ‘European mnemonical map’ apart in order to become more congruent with the different historical experiences within the enlarged EU encapsulate the curious trademark of Polish and Baltic post-Cold War politics of becoming European: their combination of simultaneously seeking recognition from and resisting the hegemonic ‘core European’ narrative of what ‘Europe’ is all about

Poland, 1932

Special Supplement to April 1982 National Geographic, Vol. 161, No. 4, Pages 419A-419BColor

Zauroczenie i strach. Rozmyślania w hotelowym hallu

INFATUATION AND FEAR[CZESŁAW MIŁOSZ: MUSINGS IN A HOTEL LOBBY] The text is an introduction to an article by Czesław Miłosz, providing a context for its interpretation and discussing the circumstances in which it was created. It concentrates on particularly interesting themes in the poet’s press correspondence from the late 1940s, which was found in Czesław Miłosz’s archives and is published here for the first time