2023/02/12 by Daniel Fittante · 5 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Anthropology #Appropriation #Armenian #Balkans: History, Politics, Society #Cognitive psychology #Cultural memory #Epistemology #Genocide #History #Law #Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration #Political science #Politics #Politics of memory #Psychology #Salience (neuroscience) #Scholarship #Sociology #The Holocaust #Turkey's Politics and Society
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/ia/iiad022
published in International Affairs 99(2), 805-824 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2023/02/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Abstract Scholars have done a great deal to unpack the motivations sitting behind nationalists’ appropriation of Holocaust-related memory laws in several eastern European and Baltic states. While these accounts have shed important light on memory politics, there remains much scope for further study. For example, several Eastern European and Baltic states have passed resolutions recognizing the Armenian genocide, as well. Furthermore, the existing literature does not provide any analytical tools to conceptualize the dynamic and complex processes giving rise to memory laws. This article broadens the memory laws scholarship through an original analysis of Latvia's Armenian genocide recognition resolution of 2021. The findings highlight how diverse actors support and pass memory laws through a process of constructivist memory politics. Constructivist memory politics involves the strategies political actors employ to change the salience or meaning of historical events in the creation and promotion of memory laws. Although the analysis focuses on a single case, it provides the analytical tools to reorient how scholars approach memory laws both in Europe and elsewhere.