PopHolocaust(s)?
“Memory asks for responsibility, not solely for the comfort of participation”[1] wrote Bartosz Kwieciński over a decade ago, concluding, that “myths and symbols constructed by mass culture are creating undoubtedly common, global, historical consciousness. In the planned issue of “Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne” we would like to focus especially on this “comfort of participation” in the Central European and Slavic context. In the regional cultures we can find plenty of examples, that pictures the limits of the phenomenon, which we operationally describe as a “popmemory”. This term hides/subsumes a myriad of meanings, ideas, projects, tasks and actions connected to popular (understood as an attractive and trendy) methods of saving and passing on the experiences of the past to the younger generations. In some way it is nowadays an obligatory(indispensable) educational approach.
Writers, historians, teachers, artists, movie-makers, philosophers and even programmers are facing today an every-actual question: how far could we move in interpreting reality, knowing that memory, apart from the cognitive and political dimension, is supposed to have also an aesthetic and ethical value. No to mention ethical. In the last few years, we can observe for example the trend of Holocaust comparisons which diversely – trivialize the extermination of Jews or draw attention to other deprecated cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, or social and ecological catastrophes.
in our opinion, some questions still remain unanswered, therefore we invite you to submit articles referring to the scope of the following questions:
- How to responsibly adjust the memory about the Shoah to the potential of modern recipients?
- Are there any typical for nowadays ways of metaphorizing Holocaust and presenting the other genocides through the prism of Jewish extermination?
- How far goes “shifting” the ‘Holocaust’s decorum”[2] today?
- How intense is the presence and misuse of the Holocaust narrative in contemporary Central European, Slavic and worldwide public debates that are not genuinely linked to it, e.g. discussing Covid measures or mass animal farming?
- Is there something like a particular Central European or Slavic memory about the Holocaust?
The fundamental, everlasting question we would like to ask is: where are the limits of popmemory (understood as trendy and attractive “mass-focused“ method for strenghtening and providing next generations with the experience of the past about the Holocaust? Where are the borderlines between pop-cultural behavioral model of preserving memory, and popular kitsch? What happens to memory and historical narratives during the times of expending (both: as well the content as the form), social tiredness with the topis of war and Holocaust?
You can send articles in all Slavonic languages, in English and other congressional languages, edited according to the instructions on the page https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/pss/about/submissions to the e-mail address; studiaslawistyczne@gmail.com or submit them on the platform https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/pss/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions until the 31st of December.
The suggested length of papers is 35000 signs with a summary (about 700 characters), key words in English and a short note about the author (max 700 characters), ORCID number of the author and e-mail address.
Please confirm your participation in this volume until the 15th of September 2022.
The thematic editors of the issue are Elisa-Maria Hiemer (Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, Germany) and Urszula Kowalska-Nadolna (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland).
[1] B. Kwieciński, Obrazy i klisze. Między biegunami wizualnej pamięci Zagłady, Kraków 2012, p. 11.
[2] Leszek Engelking’s term.