With the “Genealogies of Memory” project we facilitate academic exchange between Central and East European scholars of individual and collective memory, and intend to promote this region’s study of memory among the broader international academic community.

What is specific to the conferences and seminars held so far is, on the one hand, an attempt to define the specificity of Central and Eastern Europe as regards history and memory by looking at the changing practices of remembrance in the region during the twentieth and the twenty first centuries; and on the other hand, a proposal to see history and memory in a broader European and global context, and to search for possible application of memory research from this region within the broader international study of social and cultural memory. We are particularly interested in theoretical and methodological questions as viewed against specific historical and geographical contexts.

Our proposal is to approach memory with historical sensitivity. We want to emphasize the seemingly obvious, that historical experiences shape particular ensuing memory processes. Also, that research on memory should bear in mind the tight relation between history and memory, focusing on how historical processes shape memory processes.

Małgorzata Pakier and Joanna Wawrzyniak Conceptual Team & Initiators of the Project