Introduction: Memories of Conflict in Eastern Europe

摘要

In recent years many nations within Western Europe have undergone a period of intense public and private scrutiny of memories related to past conflicts. Well-established and widely accepted state narratives of war and national identity have come under pressure from without, as subaltern memories have challenged the monolithic nature of 'official' history. Spain's pacto del olvido (pact of forgetfulness) and what writer and former Culture Minister Jorge Semprun referred to as an example of 'voluntary collective amnesia' (quoted in Wesselingh & Vaulerin, 2005, p. 209) has been ripped apart: between 2000 and 2002 the exhumation and scientific examination of non-combatant corpses began a period in which the 'right to memory' was actively reclaimed in Spain.