Murder in the cemetery

memorial clashes over the victims of the Soviet-Polish wars

Andrzej Nowak

pp. 149-171

in: Uilleam Blacker, Alexander Etkind, Julie Fedor (eds), Memory and theory in Eastern Europe, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

Memory events begin at graves, especially mass graves.¹ War cemeteries form a natural environment for both memorial clashes and reconciliations. Here I intend to rethink the story of one such event and its victims: the dead. Dead bodies are not infrequently changed into bones of contention between private and public, between politics, histories, and religions, between power, knowledge, and the sacred.² But can the dead be murdered again?