Through War and Communism: “Unofficial” Memories and Their Role in Contemporary Scholarly Discourse

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The main focus of the panel are individual and “unofficial” memories preserved by Polish and Ukrainian families through the I and II World War and communism as well as the way they have been present in the contemporary historical discourse. This topic will be presented from marginalized or silenced perspectives of women and family history that rarely have been mentioned in professional historical writing. Papers presented in this panel are going to discuss entangled family history using private memories and other sources (archival records, press, oral history) and contrasting them to the officially distributed version of history. Panellists are going to reflect on how these phenomena shape the past and the present of post-communist Eastern and Central Europe (Ukraine and Poland in particular).

Sub Unit

• History: 1900-1945

Chair

• Anna A Mazurkiewicz, U of Gdansk (Poland)

Papers

• 'We just moved in, and this is it': Autoethnography of Home and Post-WWII (Dis)remembrance in Lviv - Eleonora Narvselius, Lund U (Sweden)

• Polish Women in War and Peace: Family Stories of Emancipation Shaping Historical Writing - Magdalena Joanna Nowak, U of Gdansk (Poland)

• Roma, Visa, and Bambino: The Unplanned Wartime Journey to England - Iwona Flis, U of Gdansk (Poland)

Discussant

• Anna A Mazurkiewicz, U of Gdansk (Poland)

Session Manager

• Courtney Doucette, SUNY Oswego