Can a scholar change society’s collective memory? Jan Gross’ Writings and Holocaust Memory in Poland
The most heated historical debates in post-Communist Poland have been provoked by two books, Neighbors from 2000 and Fear from 2008. The author of these books, Jan T. Gross, challenged the Poles’ view of themselves as solely innocent victims of German Nazism, showing that anti-Semitism could and did lead Poles to kill Jews, both during and after the war. In her presentation, Barbara Törnquist-Plewa scrutinizes the Polish reactions to these books, analyses the rhetoric in Gross’ writings and discusses his role as “mnemonic actor” in Poland. She points out that the case of Gross raises the general question of the role of historical scholarship in society.
Barbara Törnquist-Plewa is professor of Central and Eastern European Studies and director of the Centre for European Studies at Lund University, Sweden. She leads the international research network “In Search for Transcultural Memory in Europe” financed by the EU. Her research focus is nationalism, collective memory, myth and symbols in Central and Eastern Europe as well cultural integration in Europe. She publishes extensively on these subjects. She recently contributed to and edited two collections of essays entitled Cultural Transformations after Communism. Central and Eastern Europe in Focus (2011) and Painful Pasts and Useful Memories. Remembering and Forgetting in Europe (2012).
Co-sponsored by the Department of History, the Taube Center for Jewish Studies and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies
Building 200 (History Corner)
Room 307
Barbara Tornquist-Plewa
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305
Barbara Törnquist-Plewa is professor of Central and Eastern European Studies and director of the Centre for European Studies at Lund University, Lund, Sweden. Her research interest include nationalism, collective memory, myth and symbols in Central and Eastern Europe (with focus on Poland, Belarus and Ukraine) as well cultural integration in Europe. She has been involved in and coordinated a number of research projects on these issues. Currently she leads a large international research network called “In Search for Transcultural Memory in Europe” financed by the EU (COST-programme) and the research project “Remembering Ethnic Cleansing and Lost Cultural Diversity in Eastern European Cities”. She is also Lund University’s coordinator for International Research Training Group (Greifswald – Lund – Tartu) “Baltic Borderlands”, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
Professor Törnquist-Plewa's publications include monographs The Wheel of Polish Fortune : Myths in Polish Collective Consciousness during the First Years of Solidarity, (1992) and Belarus: Language and Nationalism in Borderlands (in Swedish), (2001) and a number of articles and book chapters, the most recent one "Coming to Terms with anti-Semitism in Poland", European Cultural Memory Post-89, 2013 inv.30 in European Studies Series, Amsterdam: Rodopi. She contributed to and edited 14 collections of essays, the recent entitled Cultural Transformations after Communism. Central and Eastern Europe in Focus (2011) and Painful Pasts and Useful Memories. Remembering and Forgetting in Europe, (2012).
Norman M. Naimark
CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C235
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
Norman M. Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies, a Professor of History and (by courtesy) of German Studies, and Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution and (by courtesy) of the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies. Norman formerly served as the Sakurako and William Fisher Family Director of the Stanford Global Studies Division, the Burke Family Director of the Bing Overseas Studies Program, the Convener of the European Forum (predecessor to The Europe Center), Chair of the History Department, and the Director of Stanford’s Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies.
Norman earned his Ph.D. in History from Stanford University in 1972 and before returning to join the faculty in 1988, he was a professor of history at Boston University and a fellow of the Russian Research Center at Harvard. He also held the visiting Catherine Wasserman Davis Chair of Slavic Studies at Wellesley College. He has been awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1996), the Richard W. Lyman Award for outstanding faculty volunteer service (1995), and the Dean's Teaching Award from Stanford University for 1991-92 and 2002-3.
Norman is interested in modern Eastern European and Russian history and his research focuses on Soviet policies and actions in Europe after World War II and on genocide and ethnic cleansing in the twentieth century. His published monographs on these topics include The History of the "Proletariat": The Emergence of Marxism in the Kingdom of Poland, 1870–1887 (1979, Columbia University Press), Terrorists and Social Democrats: The Russian Revolutionary Movement under Alexander III (1983, Harvard University Press), The Russians in Germany: The History of The Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949 (1995, Harvard University Press), The Establishment of Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe (1998, Westview Press), Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing In 20th Century Europe (2001, Harvard University Press), Stalin's Genocides (2010, Princeton University Press), and Genocide: A World History (2016, Oxford University Press). Naimark’s latest book, Stalin and the Fate of Europe: The Postwar Struggle for Sovereignty (Harvard 2019), explores seven case studies that illuminate Soviet policy in Europe and European attempts to build new, independent countries after World War II.
