Memory, History, and Opposition under State Socialism (School for Advanced Research Advanced Seminar Series)

Eight anthropologists, sociologists, and historians probe the oppositional narratives created by Chinese rural intellectuals, èmigrè Croats, and organized dissenters such as the Djilas of Yugoslavia who constructed and maintained oppositional histories in state socialist societies.

From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the breakup of the Soviet Union to the "Velvet Revolutions" in Eastern European states, the late twentieth century has been as eventful as any period in world history. In this important new collection, eight anthropologists and historians deal with the construction and maintenance of oppositional histories in state socialist societies. Even as the creators of official history jealousy guarded the right to produce historical texts, alternative histories survived and on occasion even prospered in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and China. Contestation over how the past was to be represented was never fully eradicated, either within communities of academic historians of among ordinary people. The papers in this volume present the lively variety of sentiments and energies expressed by these dissenting voices. These essays resulted from an Advanced Seminar held at the School of American Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico.