Suchergebnisse

"By contrast with the two preceding centuries, which were shaped by the impact of the French and Russian Revolution, the twentieth-first century has begun under the sign of the eclipse of utopias. The disappearance of a visible 'horizon of expectation' has generated a charged memory of the twentieth century as a time of violence, totalitarianisms and genocides, encapsulated by the image of their victims. Analyzing the commemorations of May 8, 1945 - the anniversary of the end of the Second World War and of the Sétif massacre - we could distinguish three main spaces that define Europe's memories: a Western space shaped by the remembrance of the Holocaust; an Eastern space dominated by the legacy of Communism; and a postcolonial space exhuming the continent's imperial past. In spite of the conflicts that it entails, the conjunction of these different perspectives can prove fruitful both hermeneutically (as a tool for rethinking European history) and politically (as a means of reformulating an idea of citizenship that transcends national divisions)." (author's abstract)