Of Red Dragons and Evil Spirits

Important, innovative and appealing, Oto Luthar's volume problematizes the intersection of the "political involvement in interpretation of the past" and the "nationalisation of the past by reinvention of 'authentic national historical memory'". Examining various reinterpretations of World War II, the Holocaust, and their socialist discourses and the competing historical memories that they produced in the last 25 years, the authors' fresh research focuses on case studies of 8 countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia). Engagingly argued, each chapter reveals how rival memories become instrumental in the most recent agendas of post-socialist political agents. Addressing a significant and timely topic, Oto Luthar has edited an excellent volume that not only adds to recent scholarship in the field of memory studies, but also fills a gap in East European historiographies, exposing their political motivations.