Post-Communist memory politics has occupied a highly disputed symbolic position ever since the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. This article presents the case of Czech student leaders of the revolution, especially Monika Pajerová (since 2002 Monika MacDonagh-Pajerová), who co-organized the 17 November 1989 demonstration that initiated the fall of the Communist regime. It focuses on the social and political movement "Thank You and Goodbye!" ("Děkujeme, odejděte!") organized by the same students in 1999. The article analyzes this particular moment as a turning point in post-Communist development: the students' genuine concerns and their sincere analysis of the democrats' own shortcomings in and after 1989 created the background for a new ideology of anti-Communist remembrance that would become prevalent in the Czech public sphere in the 2010s. The post-Communist regime's refusal to integrate the Communist period as a legitimate part of national history prevented the building of an appeased democratic society. It was the original sin of the post-Communist regime, one that would create the need to rewrite the national script concerning Communist history.

The 2014 protests and plenums in Bosnia-Herzegovina were widely noted for their insertion of economic and social justice topics into the stale public discourse of ethnocracy. They also signified a potential to break with an anemic civil society shaped by international intervention, technocratic "project logic" and apolitical service provision. This article argues for treating these struggles in reference to the dual nature of the hegemony created by both local ethnonationalists and international liberal intervenors. It applies a Gramscian perspective to the processes by which hegemony is created and (re)produced via consensus in civil society. The challenge to dual hegemony can be seen in the central focus of contestation on social justice in economic arrangements as well as in the alternative logics of engagement and organizational forms in society. We describe the tensions arising from this dual challenge in terms of the degree to which they contest or reproduce the predominant anti-politics, a stance of distancing from dialogue or even contact with political actors and institutions. We conclude that the events during and since 2014 have strengthened the means to build an alternative third bloc via a "local first" approach, containing heterogeneous forms of local-scale action with explicitly political strategies.

This article is part of the special section titled The Genealogies of Memory, guest edited by Ferenc Laczó and Joanna Wawrzyniak This article analyses the wider context of policy conflict concerning public memory of the 1989 events. It uses Pierre Nora's concept of in trying to explain why 23 August 1939 has been turned into a European Remembrance Day whereas 9 November 1989 has not. By investigating closely the role that various memory actors played during debates at the European level, it advances the idea that the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact has been more successful in establishing itself within the European remembrance landscape because it has allowed for the promotion of a unifying narrative of the European past. In doing so, the article questions the frequently advanced idea that memory clashes in the EU form around an East-West divide that in some cases overlaps with a Right-Left divide. The analysis digs deep into the complex dynamics lying at the heart of memory contests concerning the end of the Cold War within the EU and provides a more differentiated view of discussions preceding EU decisions on policies of memory.

This article explores the history of HIV activism in Poland from the socialist period through the early 1990s transformation as a means of examining the reconfiguration of rights, obligations, and responsibility as Poland redefined itself as a market democracy. Drawing on archival materials, in-depth qualitative interviews with current and former HIV activists, and participant observation at HIV prevention organizations in Warsaw, Poland, I sketch the ways in the socialist system's failures to protect the health of its subjects led to the terms through which state-citizen engagement were defined in the postsocialist period. Uncertainties and anxieties surrounding who was responsible for protecting the health and well-being of citizens in the newly democratic Poland gave rise to a series of violent protests centered on HIV prevention and care for people living with HIV/AIDS. Resolution of these political and social crises involved defining democracy in postsocialist Poland through claims to moral authority, in alliance with the Catholic Church, and an obligation by multiple stakeholders to disseminate technical/scientific knowledge. By comparing the responses to the epidemic by diverse institutions, including the government, the Catholic Church, and the fledgling gay rights movement, this analysis reveals the ways in which democracy in postsocialist Poland tightly links science, democratic reform, and moral/religious authority, while at the same time excluding sexual minorities from engaging in political activism centered on rights to health and inclusion in the new democracy.

The author analyzes "the politics of reproduction in Romania...[in order] to comprehend better the...legacy of the Ceausescu era.... This study also enables us to focus on the social implications and human costs of restrictive reproductive legislation and policies, especially as they impact on the lives of women and children.... In this report, I will explore the relationship between official rhetoric, policy, and everyday practice through an analysis of the politics of reproduction during Ceausescu's reign. I will discuss Ceausescu's pronatalist policies, and comment on the human dramas born of them: illegal abortion, child abandonment, infant AIDS, and international adoption."

Throughout the Second World War and the post-war period, the city of Chernivtsi was transformed from a multiethnic and borderland urban microcosm into a culturally uniform Soviet socialist city. As the Soviets finally took power in this onetime capital of a Hapsburg province in 1944, they not only sponsored further large-scale population transfers but also "repopulated" its history, creating a new urban myth of cultural uniformity. This article examines the connection between war commemoration in Chernivtsi in the era of post-war, state-sponsored anti-Semitism and the formation of collective memory and identities of the city's post-war population. The images of homogeneously Ukrainian Chernivtsi and Bukovina were created through the art of monumental propaganda, promoting public remembrance of certain events and personalities while making sure that others were doomed to oblivion. Selective commemoration of the wartime events was an important tool of drawing the borders of Ukrainian national identity, making it exclusivist and ethnic-based. Through an investigation of the origins of the post-war collective memory in the region, this article addresses the problem of perceived discontinuity between all things Soviet and post-Soviet in Ukraine. It demonstrates that it is, on the contrary, the continuity between Soviet and post-Soviet eras that defines today's dominant culture and state ideology in Ukraine and particularly in its borderlands.

Over the past decade, public opinion surveys have shown that Croats are deeply dissatisfied with their health care system and asses it to be one of the most important issues. However, health care hardly makes it into any political discourse in Croatia. This study analyzes the results of a public opinion survey conducted before the 2007 parliamentary elections to find out what the public sentiment on health care performance in Croatia is and to analyze the reasons why health care is not addressed by political actors. Evidence suggests that while health care is the most salient issue today, the public often understands it poorly. Thus, in a political environment of competing issues, and given the complexity of tacking health care in the policy arena, politicians strategically avoid discussing the issue.