Politics of the Past: German and Russian Memory Cultures and Their Meaning for the Present

Postwar Germany's memory culture is rightly lauded as a rare example of a country coming to terms with its tainted past. But with increasing frequency and intensity, critics have begun to wonder whether this model has run its course, or at least needs to be updated or reexamined. Post-Soviet Russia, meanwhile, has been marked by the near-total lack of such a culture. The trauma and crimes of the past have purposefully forgotten or actively misremembered--a memory black hole that makes possible authoritarianism at home and war abroad.

Led by Bard College Berlin's writer-in-residence, expert panelists in the politics of memory in Germany and Russia will explore, discuss, and debate how each society has incorporated—or ignored—the injury and convulsions of the past, and how these respective memory cultures weigh on the present day. By placing the two in contrast and dialogue, this event will explore both the possibilities and limits of memory, with urgent lessons for the contemporary moment.

Please register here.

Speakers:
Professor Stefanie Schüler-Springorum is Director of the Berlin-based Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin. She previously was the Director of the Institute for the History of German Jews in Hamburg and Chair of the Leo Baeck Institute’s Academic Working Group in Germany. Her work focuses predominantly on German and German-Jewish history in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Sergey Bondarenko is a historian and researcher at the Memorial Society. He is the author of the forthcoming book Lost in Memory: Memorial Society and the Battle for the Russian Past.

Joshua Yaffa is a contributing writer for The New Yorker. He is also the author of Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin's Russia, which won the Orwell Prize in 2021. He has also written for Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, National Geographic, and other publications. He is currently the inaugural writer-in-residence at Bard College Berlin and was previously a fellow at The American Academy in Berlin.

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For more information, e-mail [email protected].

Time: 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm CET/GMT+1

Location: Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Jägerstraße 22-23, 10117 Berlin, Germany)

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