The memory of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, known as the Great Patriotic War, has become the centerpiece of Russian nationalism. State driven politics of memory, however, cannot fully explain this development. Duty bound to remember the unimaginable sacrifices of the World War II generation, Russian families are a receptive audience to patriotic messaging. Products of a Soviet Culture with a long history of commemorating the war, Russian families are already imprinted with an understanding of the past that can be reinforced in the present. Raised in the Soviet Union and a graduate of Moscow State University, Pennsylvania State University Professor Katya Haskins reveals how Russian families are integral to the ways in which the Great Patriotic War is remembered in Putin’s Russia. A conversation with Katya Haskins about her book, Remembering the War, Forgetting the Terror: Appeals to Family Memory in Putin’s Russia, next on the May 6th episode of Realms of Memory.

From Spain to the Baltic States Europe is littered with sites connected to the personal lives of former dictators. Birthplaces, childhood homes, summer and winter residences, mausoleums and tombs these sites of dictators can be powerful poles of attraction for extremists, nostalgists, and dark tourists. They can also offer opportunities to bolster democratic systems by educating citizens about difficult pasts. How have Europeans taken up the challenge of managing these memory sites? What do these sites reveal about the politics of memory in Europe? These are the questions Spanish historian Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas takes up in his book Sites of the Dictators: Memories of Authoritarian Europe, 1945-2020. A conservation with Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas about sites of dictators in this episode of Realms of Memory.

Continental Europe is littered with the memory sites of past dictators. From birthplaces to summer residences, these remains from Europe’s darkest chapters present serious challenges to the democratic present. How do Europeans confront this past? Find out from historian Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas, author of Sites of the Dictators: Memories of Authoritarian Europe, 1945-2020, on the April 1st episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.