The transnational mythscape of the Second World War

Abstract

Since the early 2000s, the study of European Memory politics has proliferated, but has come to mean different things. It focuses either on the emergence of Holocaust remembrance as a shared cultural memory, disputes within European Union institutions over what the European collective memory should be, or diplomatic standoffs between Russia and its former satellites. I argue that while such complex multi-level memory politics defy an overarching theoretical categorisation, they can be understood through a comprehensive approach, which is achieved by considering the different narratives of the past to be interpretations of a common historical occurrence. This article argues that European Memory Politics as a whole occurs within a transnational mythscape of the Second World War, in which international actors promote their interpretations as simplified myths while warding off competing myths that negatively depict their mythical selves. An emergent narrative alliance between Russia and Israel, made in response to European memory politics, is used to illustrate the utility of the transnational mythscape framework for understanding memory politics beyond the national sphere.