New book edited by Matthias Schwartz and Nina Weller “Appropriating History” is out now

The volume Appropriating History: The Soviet Past in Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian Popular Culture, edited by our project members Matthew Schwartz and Nina Weller, has just been published.

The book is available as a print publication and in open access here.

Popular media play an important role in reconstructing collective imaginations of history. Dramatic events and ruptures of the 20th century provide the material for playful as well as neo-imperialist and nationalist appropriations of the past. The contributors to the volume investigate this phenomenon using case studies from Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian popular cultures. They show how in mainstream films, TV series, novels, comics and computer games, the reference to Soviet history offers role models, action patterns and even helps to justify current political and military developments. The volume thus presents new insights into the multi-layered and explosive dynamics of popular culture in Eastern Europe.