Memory studies offer a unique lens for exploring the complex and multifaceted developments of Central and Eastern Europe. This special issue seeks to examine how gender intersects with collective and individual memory, providing new insights into the region's past and its ongoing social and political transformations.
The polarized global political landscape highlights the significance of memory politics in articulating collective identities. Post-socialist actors frequently leverage memory to assert their countries’ geopolitical positions—whether as part of Europe, as a bridge between East and West, or within the Pan-Slavic imaginary (Mälksoo 2009, Suslov, Čejka, Ðorđević 2023). A gender perspective can reveal how masculinities and femininities are constructed within these processes and the gender orders underpinning these collective identities. Research has demonstrated how the past is invented and retold in political struggles, including studies on the gendered historical discourses that paved the way for the Russian war against Ukraine (Gaufman 2015, Shevtsova 2024).
Gender scholars are becoming increasingly interested in postcolonial approaches to material, symbolic, and mnemonic dimensions of the post-socialist space (e.g. Koobak, Tlostanova, Thapar-Bjkert 2021). Some examine Russia’s role as a regional imperial power, others explore connections between local and global feminist actors, while many investigate the material and cultural influence of the West on Central and Eastern Europe during the post-socialist transformations. Memory studies in this context continue to thrive, offering explanations for significant trends such as the rise of far-right movements and illiberal politics (Hilmar 2023, Pehe, Wawryzniak 2023). Notably, the ascent of the far right is often intertwined with the persistent masculinization of politics and the conservative turn observed in numerous societies (Miklóssy, Kangaspuro 2022). Memory politics plays a crucial role in these illiberal trends (Pető 2021).
At the same time, memory studies provide pathways for envisioning new solidarities and reconfiguring social and political landscapes. Articulating the silenced stories of women, LGBTQI people, Roma communities, and other marginalized groups challenges, enriches and rewrites dominant historical narratives—from the World Wars to state socialism and the post-socialist period. These recovered narratives of community-building, struggle, resistance or even compliance have the potential to reinvent traditions of political solidarity and democratic activism.
This special issue invites feminist interdisciplinary contributions that engage with the gendered dimensions of memory in Central and Eastern Europe. We welcome theoretical and empirical papers that adopt diverse methodological approaches, with the aim of examining the interplay between individual and collective memory.
14. 2. 2025: Deadline for abstract submission (300 words)
7. 3. 2025: Abstracts selection/confirmation sent to the authors
15. 10. 2025: Articles submission
8/ 2026: Issue publication
Submit your abstract to the issue guest editors: zuzana.madarova@uniba.sk, agata.sustova-drelova@savba.sk, denisa.nestakova@herder-institut.de. Put journal editors genderteam@soc.cas.cz in the copy.
Gaufman, E. 2023. Damsels in Distress: Fragile Masculinity in Digital War. Media, War & Conflict 16(4): 516-533. https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352221130271
Hilmar, T. 2023. Deserved: Economic Memories After the Fall of the Iron Curtain. Columbia University Press.
Koobak, R., M. Tlostanova, S. Thapar-Bjkert (eds). 2021. Postcolonial and Postsocialist Dialogues. Intersections, Opacities, Challenges in Feminist Theorizing and Practice. Routledge.
Mälksoo, M. 2009. The Memory Politics of Becoming European: The East European Subalterns and the Collective Memory of Europe. European Journal of International Relations 15(4): 653-680. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066109345049
Miklóssy, K., M. Kangaspuro (eds.). 2022. Conservatism and Memory Politics in Russia and Eastern Europe. Routledge.
Pehe, V., J. Wawrzyniak. 2023. Remembering the Neoliberal Turn: Economic Change and Collective Memory in Eastern Europe after 1989. Routledge.
Pető, A. 2021. The Illiberal Memory Politics in Hungary. Journal of Genocide Research 24(2): 241–249. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2021.1968150
Shevtsova, M. (ed.). 2024. Feminist Perspective on Russia’s War in Ukraine. Hear Our Voices. Lexington Books.
Suslov, M., M. Čejka, V. Ðorđević (eds.). 2023. Pan-Slavism and Slavophilia in Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe. Origins, Manifestations and Functions. Palgrave Macmillan.
