CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Siwiec, Stephanie Anne |
|---|---|
| Title | Contested Memories: Victimhood Narratives in Hungary and East Asia |
| Summary | This thesis examines victimhood narratives of World War II and their relationship to the formation of national identities in Hungary, Japan and South Korea. The guiding research questions of the study ask why these countries identify as victims of WWII and how this affects their present-day domestic and international politics. In order to narrow the scope of these questions, the Memorial to the Victims of the German Occupation in Budapest, Hungary serves as a case study where memories of the war are contested by Hungarian citizens and problematized by the government. The Peace Monument located in Seoul, South Korea serves as a secondary analysis that reflects the complicated relationship between South Korean and Japanese memories of the war. By conducting a visual analysis for both structures, supplemented by historical background research, victimhood narratives appear to support national identities based off an ideal trajectory of history. This thesis is not a comparative study and instead exhibits the different ways victimhood narratives have been detrimental to political transition (Hungary) and international cooperation (Japan and South Korea). |
| Supervisor | Kovacs, Andras; Renyi, Andras |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/siwiec_stephanie.pdf |
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