Friday, February 28, 2025 from 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM PST

UCLA Bunche Hall, Room 10383, 11282 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095

Please click here to register for Zoom presentation

FEATURED SPEAKER:

Daniel Fittante, author.

From the 1980s, memory laws – that is, legislative acts enshrining state-sanctioned interpretations of important historical events – have played diverse roles in Europe. In Western Europe, for example, Germany and France introduced memory laws, which established important precedents in terms of their specific formulations and purposes – particularly, in the prohibition of Holocaust denial. However, as scholars have noted, subsequent memory laws emanating from Central and Eastern Europe have served different ends. Right-wing populists in several post-communist EU member states have used memory laws to pursue their own aims, such as exculpating titular nationalities from historical wrongdoing during the Holocaust and creating a space to discuss the crimes of communism. But scholars’ exclusive focus on right-wing populists’ instrumentalization of memory obscures the fact that elected officials across the political spectrum throughout Europe – including those from pro-democratic, left-wing parties – use memory to influence perceptions and policies. In fact, memory laws often succeed because diverse political actors promote the same memory projects to put forward their conflicting values and aspirations. Drawing from data collected in diverse European countries, this presentation will introduce a new way of framing memory laws as strategic tools used in which both right and left-leaning actors pull from the past to influence the political present. For over two decades, MPs across Europe’s political spectrum have relied on Armenian Genocide memory in their conflicting efforts to influence diverse political phenomena, both nationally and supranationally.

CO-SPONSORS:

Promise Armenian Institute

Narekatsi Chair in Armenian Studies

Center for European and Russian Studies

NAASR/Calouste Gulbenkian Lecture Series on Contemporary Armenian Issues