Vol. 42 (2021): Nation-Building and the Dynamics of Silences, Memory and Forgettings in Central Europe

This special issue focuses on the relationship between nation-building and the dynamics of silences, memory and forgetting in Central and Eastern Europe. The seven articles that comprise this volume, authored by scholars from leading academic centres in the V4 region, the UK and Norway, and from different branches of anthropology and adjacent disciplines, offer a rich variety of ethnographic examples, innovative concepts and theoretical questions. The main focus is to comparatively demonstrate how the concept of long-term silence (or deep silence), like other processes of memory and forgetting, can serve as a useful analytical category in the study of nation-building in the Visegrád region (but not exclusively).  This is a complex and dynamic process which can only be analysed and understood within the context of Europeanisation and globalisation. 

Cover graphic: Cristina Soler