Theme: Memory
2025 ASEEES President: Adrienne Edgar, UC Santa Barbara
Memory is both personal and collective, and shared ways of remembering help to define human communities. In Eastern Europe and Eurasia, individual and “unofficial” memories have often been seen as more trustworthy than the history recounted in official sources. Yet individual memory is inevitably affected and shaped by public memory, which some states and political elites try to manipulate for their own gain. Authoritarian rulers, whatever their ideological stripe, seek to control historical memory in order to bolster and justify their rule.
The study of memory is interdisciplinary, engaging cultural and literary theorists, social scientists, historians, and others. Remembrance is also crucial to the work of archivists, librarians, museum curators, and other professionals. For several years, our field has been reexamining long-held assumptions and incorporating new, previously marginalized or silenced perspectives. This process of decolonization brings with it changes in how we remember and commemorate the past. At the same time, a broad assault on truth in our digital age makes the collective memories that sustain communities more contested and fragile. All of these developments highlight the importance of our work as scholars for understanding both the past and the present of Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The 2025 ASEEES convention invites scholars working in all disciplines and historical periods to explore the theme of memory as it relates to our region.
