CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Hrckova, Jana |
|---|---|
| Title | NOTHING BUT PAST: HISTORICITY AND IDENTITY IN A CENTRAL SLOVAKIAN VILLAGE |
| Summary | The text shows how people in Starov mobilize their past in order to manage the unsure post-socialist reality in the village and enhance their shared identity. The WWII massacre and burning down of the village by the Nazi forces, and the transformation from socialist to post-socialist society, signified by pervasive nostalgia among the villagers are identified as two major landmarks in memory landscape of the villagers. The inhabitants frame the WWII remembering in a way that has the power to shape the very basis of the shared identities of the villagers and demarcate the in-group circle of the community. Through commemoration ceremonies and contrasts with the official narratives endorsed by the state, villagers also use the tragedy remembering to assert their positions vis-à-vis the outsiders and changing memory politics. The chapter on post-socialist nostalgia shows how the idealized images of the past are used to articulate the shared morals of the community. They serve as an anchor in a dynamically changing present and a program for uncertain future in the village. Analysis of the way in which inhabitants relate to the two different landmarks thus provides two diverging, yet supplementary views of how people attach meanings to their worlds and reinforce the sense of community through remembering. |
| Supervisor | Naumescu, Vlad, Geva, Dorit |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/hrckova_jana.pdf |
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