Introduction

Author(s): Stephen Greenblatt, István Rév, Randolph Starn

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Representations, No. 49, Special Issue: Identifying Histories: Eastern Europe Before
and After 1989 (Winter, 1995), pp. 1-14
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928746 .
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http://www.jstor.org
STEPHEN GREENBLATT
ISTVAN REV
AND RANDOLPH STARN

Introduction

THIS S PECIAL ISS UE, like the eventsthat have occasioned it, seems
at once oddlyimprobableand overdetermined. Fiveyearsafterthe"events"of
1989and thedissolution ofCommunist regimesin EasternEurope,participants
and observers can stillmarvelat thejolt tohistory whileinsistingon anynumber
of reasonswhyit had to happen.Forall thecountlesspostmortems thereis no
consensuson coveringterms-liberation, uprising,coup d'etat,end
revolution,
ofempire,simply "thechange"?-orindeedonwhether theold regimesarereally
dead. The leadersof 1989 have mostly been reactionaries
eclipsed, holdforthas
muchto denouncenewpoliciesas theold system, formerCommunists haveout-
polledthecompetition. There is evena marketin theold order'ssymbols, the
realones and nowthereproductions. In a waveof nostalgiathetin-canTrabant
and the blue blouseof the CommunistYouthLeague have becomeEast Ger-
man statussymbols.The crisismanagers,themedia,and the ex-cold warriors
havefoundnewdiversions, and in a moodswingonlytoofamiliar in theregion,
the headyoptimismof onlya fewyearsago is overshadowed by fatalismand
disillusionment.
Be thatas it may,neitherEasternEurope norcontemporary historyis pre-
dictableRepresentations fare.The of
spectacle an immensely variedand rapidly
changingsituation,and of old Iron Curtainologists and newlycredentialed
expertsstruggling tokeepabreastofit,shouldbe fairwarningtointerlopers and
amateurs.Admittedly, thisis an inducement too,thougha criticofEnglishliter-
ature,a Hungarianhistorian, and a historianof RenaissanceItalywouldnotbe
anyone'schoice,betweenBerkeleyand Budapest,on thewesternand theeastern
rims,to riseto thechallenge.
Yetcoincidences gradually wovea kindofinevitability intoourcollaboration.
One of theAmericaneditorshad metIstvaln Revin Budapestin themid-1980s
and had discovereda sharedinterestin the linkedproblemsof censorship,
secrecy,memory, and dissent.The threeofus cametogether forthefirsttimein
Californiaa fewyearslater,in thedayswhenthewallsweretumbling downand
unlikelyencountersbetweenEast Europeansand Westerners were happening
everywhere. Aroundthattimewe talkedaboutteachingtogether, and thesecon-
versationseventually led to twojointBerkeleyseminars, one on the"invention"
of privacyin EarlyModernEurope and theotheron theinstitutionalization of

REPRESENTATIONS 49 * Winter 1995 (C THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

 memoryin rituals,monuments,texts,and other cultural artifacts.Before and
after 1989, Stephen Greenblattand Randolph Starn had come away fromvisits
to Eastern Europe spellbound bythe renegotiationof public and privatebound-
aries and the memory-work we had seen there-or thoughtwe had seen. If any-
thing,the spell had deepened as boundaries continuedto shiftand old ghosts,or
new ones, refused to be laid to rest. IstvainRev, who was writingthe historyof
modern Hungary and beginningto collectarchivalmaterialson the Communist
regimesof the East, was a masterfulexegete and an irresistibleguide.
The clincherforthisissue was theenthusiasmof friendsand colleagues, even
those who had the expertiseto knowjust how hard it would be to come up with
a coherent plan, not to mentionconfidentconclusions.All the scholars we con-
tacted expressed interestin contributing,though some were so deeply involved
in or hesitantabout the directionof thingsthattheychose to waitlonger than we
could. As itturnedout, the papers we did receiveoffered-more bygood fortune
than by design-a fair sample of the complex variationsplayed out in Eastern
Europe in and around the eventsof 1989.
Of course our interestsand experiencesvaried, too. In the end we decided
to let differencesshow fromthe verybeginningin thisintroduction.The call for
conformityof one kind or anotherwas, afterall, not the least oppressive feature
of the regimeson bothsides of the cold war.It seemed fitting
thatwe should write
"each accordingto his own needs,"to borrowa still-serviceablephrase fromMarx.
And sincetheusual retrospectivelevelingof the heightsand depthsof experience
had alreadybegun, we were all the more inclinedto acknowledgeour inabilityor
unwillingnessto smooth over the complex life-worldof Eastern Europe and of
our engagementwithit.

Jolts
1986

AT THE WORLD Shakespeare Congress in West Berlin, one of the

leading academics in the German DemocraticRepublic,an influentialfigurewith
impressivecredentialsand considerable institutionalpatronage, introduced me
to his protege,R. Though youthfulin appearance, R. had alreadyadvanced quite
far in the East German academic system:he held a post thatwas the equivalent
of a tenuredassociate professorshipin an Americanuniversity. R.'s command of
spoken Englishwas extraordinary. When he toldus thathe had neverbeforebeen
outside of East Germany, his fluent,idiomatic, virtuallyunaccented speech
seemed almost miraculous. The other American academics and I lifted our
glassesto toasthim; he smiledand said thatwe should be toastingthe educational
systemof the German DemocraticRepublic. The conversationdriftedaway,and

2 REPRESENTATIONS
the Americans at the table began to speak of Ronald Reagan's remarkablepop-
ularity,a popularitythat survivedvirtuallydaily revelationsin the press of his
penchantforconfusingfictionand realityor,to put itbluntly,his mendacity."Yet
another reason I am gratefulthatI live in the GDR," young R. ventured; "I can
alwaysbelieve everythingthatour leaders say."We all laughed, thinkingthat he
was being ironic,but he reddened and said, "No, I mean it. The onlytimethatI
ever detected any gap betweenofficialpronouncementsand the truthwas when
a housing ministerdeclared that a new block of workers'flatshad been com-
pleted, and I happened to know thatthe builders had not yetinstalledthe win-
dows." We continued to laugh, and R.'s distinguishedmentor intervened: "We
mustbe humble,R.," he said quietly."We mustlearn to be humble."
A few months afterthe fall of the Berlin Wall, R. undertook a Vergangen-
heitsbewaltigung, a "masteryof the past" throughvoluntarypublic confession.He
had for some years been a spy against NATO. Living abroad in an unspecified
country,he had "run"an agent and had relayedsecretinformationto his govern-
ment. His lifehad been difficult and dangerous,but he had acted out of idealistic
convictions:he believedthattheimbalanceof militarypowerwas dangerous, that
an overconfidentNATO could launch a nuclear firststrike(a strategythe United
States never officially renounced), and that reactionaryforcesin the West were
cynicallyseeking to undermine whateverwas socially progressive in his own
country.R. had never,he declared, spied against his fellowcountrymen,though
he had, prior to assignmentabroad, writtentwo domestic reports, purely as
required samples of his skill. Contraryto assurances given at the time by the
securityservices,these reportsmay,he now suspected,have been used improp-
erly; but if so he was betrayedas much as those about whom he had written.As
far as he was concerned, R. wrote to me in an anguished letter,he had simply
been makingwhathe believed was a contributionto progressivepoliticsand ulti-
matelyto world peace. Though his confessionwas voluntaryand there was no
legal action against him, R. was dismissedfromhis universityposition.Without
much hope, he began to look fora new post and asked me fora letterof recom-
mendation. I wroteit.

1987

During the cold war,the Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, the old-

est Shakespeare association in the world, split in two. In 1987 I was invitedto
attend the annual meeting of its East German half. The meeting was held in
Weimar as part of the Shakespeare-Tage, an elaborate and exceptionallywell
attended series of performances,concerts,and lectures.I was put up in the fine
old Elephant Hotel. When I checked in,thedesk clerktold me confidentially that
I could have a veryspecial room: none otherthan Hitler'sfavorite.The crowd of

Introduction 3
 admirers would gather beneath his window and call the Fuhrer forthonto the
balconyby chantinga jingle: "Lieber Ftihrer,komm heraus, aus dem Elefanten-
Haus!" Though I am an admirer of Mel Brooks's "Springtimefor Hitler," I
declined thisparticularhonor.
The Shakespeare-Tage began witha Kranzniederlegung, a wreath-layingcer-
emony.Hundreds marched in a long, silentcortege throughthe streetsof Wei-
mar,past Goethe's house and Schiller'shouse and Cranach's house and Herder's
house-those gloriousmonumentsof Germanhighculturenestledin the shadow
of Buchenwald ConcentrationCamp, whose barrack windows glintin the late
afternoonsun on the green hill beyond the city.At the head of the cortege,offi-
cials of the Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaftcarriedfuneralwreaths,withlong
red and black ribbonsbearing the symbolsof the people's republic. The crowd
reached the WeimarPublic Gardens, where Goethe built his summerhouse and
where a beautifulstatueto Shakespeare was erected in the earlynineteenthcen-
tury.As the crowd stood silentlyaround the statue,the officialslaid the wreaths
at the feet of the Bard and delivered inspirationalspeeches: "Justas Prospero
renounced his magic at the end of The Tempest, so should Ronald Reagan
renounce Star Wars. ..."
At dinner an elderlyand distinguishedRussian Shakespearean was grum-
bling about the state of thingsin the Soviet Union. "You know how bad things
are?" he asked me. "I have to come to East Germanyto buya decent pair of boots."
I clucked sympathetically. "Do you reallywant to know how bad thingsare?" he
resumed aftera moment."In Moscow,to getmoneyto buystockingsRussian girls
sleep withAfricans.""ProfessorA.," I said quietly,"I thinkI should explain that
in Americawe would not use sleepingwithan Africanas a symbolof unspeakable
degradation." "Perhaps you don't understand,"he replied impatiently."I mean
Russiangirlsare sleepingwithBlack men."
The play thatnightwas Hamlet,a generallyheavyand dull performance.But
when Laertes asked forpermissionto returnto Paris and the king,walkingover
to a massivedesk,opened a drawerand silentlyhanded hima passport,the entire
audience gasped.

At the end of the conference,V., a Czech professorin his sixties,offeredto

drive me to Prague. On the long drive,we got to talking,and he said he had a
favorto ask me. He was, he declared proudly,the model forone of thecharacters
in Philip Roth'sTheProfessorofDesire.The characterV. mentionedwas not a par-
to him all the same. V.
ticularlyappealing one, but the associationwas gratifying
was concerned because Roth mighthave heard an unpleasant storyabout him,a
storyhe wanted to explain. It was too risky,however,to writeto Roth directly
fromCzechoslovakia: mail sent abroad was routinelyopened, and mail fromV.
to Roth would certainlybe intercepted.The storywas this:

4 REPRESENTATIONS
 In 1968, at the timeof Alexander Dubcek and the Prague Spring,V. was the
dean at a major Czech university.He was sympatheticto the reformers,but he
had by nature, he said, the characterof a trimmer:he feared that they were
moving too fast,and that theirrecklessnesswould bring disaster.Hence when
the reformersdemanded the dismissalfromthe universityof F., a particularly
notoriousStalinisthard-liner,the son of a famousJewishlinguistwho had been
murdered by the Fascists,V. advised patience and caution. This caution did not
help him much: when the Russians and theirminionsmarched into Prague and
toppled the Dubcek regime,V., along withso many others,was summarilydis-
missed fromhis post. His replacement:F.
But trimmingwas not entirelywithoutits reward. Where many of his col-
leagues were shipped offto languish in prisons or to do menial work, V. was
reassigned to the engineering school and told to translatecomputer manuals
fromEnglish. More significantly, he said, no one asked him to turnin his library
key.This meant thatafterwork he could let himselfinto the reading room and
keep up withscholarshipin his field,thus sparing him the fate of a whole gen-
eration of Czech intellectualswho were cut offfromall access to ongoing intel-
lectual life.At firsthe thoughtthatthe keymightsimplyhave been an oversight,
but a yearor twolaterthelock on thelibrarydoor was changed, and V. was issued
a new key.
Someone-he did not knowwho-was evidentlylooking afterhim,but with
a caution and reserve that were more than the match of his own. For when V.
tested the waters by submittinga scholarlyarticle to a Czech journal, he was
informedthathe would neveragain be permittedto publishor teach in his field.
The situationcontinuedmore or less unchanged foryears,V. told me, and there
was no prospectof improvement.Then, withthe dissidentmovementknown as
Charter 77, he suddenlypassed fromboredom and quiet despair to a full-blown
crisis.His friends,many of whom had been worse offthan he during the bitter
yearsof repression,asked him to sign the charter.At the same timeV. received a
phone call from F. "I have been quietly watchingout for you," F. said, "and
helping you in any way thatI can. I haven'tforgottenthatyou stood up against
those who wanted to fireme back in '68. But you have manyenemies, and there
has been untilnow verylittlethatI have been able to do. Now, however,the new
troublehas given me a chance to do you a favor.You willnot be allowed to teach
again, that'sclear,but I have arranged foryou to stop translatingthe computer
manuals and to work full-timeon your literaryprojects.You will also be able to
traveland to accept visitingappointmentsabroad. More important,though this
has been difficult to arrange,you willbe permittedto publishonce again in your
field."V. said that his heart was beating withhope for the firsttime in almost a
decade. "There is only one condition,"F. went on. "Your firstpublicationmust
be a denunciation of the charter,which we will printon the frontpage of the
newspaper."

Introduction 5
 V. asked, he told me, fora day's grace to thinkit over."Fine,"F. replied, "but
no more than a day. It has been verydifficult to get thisdeal foryou. And, bythe
way,ifyou decide to turnitdown,you mightas well signthe charter,since we will
considera refusalof thesetermsthe same as a signature."V. told me thathe went
home and talked over the situationwith his wife. Nothing was ever going to
change, theyglumlyagreed, and there was no point in making life even worse
than it was. He would lose some of his friends,but most of them would do the
same thingiftheywere giventhe chance.
By this time we had reached the border between the German Democratic
Republic and Czechoslovakia, and V. had to stop his storywhile we passed
througha weirdlythoroughcustomssearch-the dour soldierseven removedthe
backseat of the car-that seemed to rattlehim deeply.
"So I wrotethe denunciation,"he said, as we startedup again in the direction
of Terezin. V. sigheddeeplyas we passed thesiteof theconcentrationcamp where
most of Czechoslovakia'sJewswere imprisoned,eitherto die there or to be sent
for finalprocessingto Auschwitz."Though I'm not Jewish,I almost wound up
thereduringthewar,"he said. "Everyonehad to geta documentfromthe parish,
certifying baptism.""The churchesactuallywentalong withthis?"I interrupted
incredulously."Absolutely," V. replied,"and forsome reason mypriestsaw some-
thingin theregisterthathe didn'tlikeand was veryreluctantto giveme the paper.
Perhaps I have some Jewishblood." There was a long silence; then V. resumed
his account of the trap fromwhichhe didn'tmanage to escape. "I didn'thave to
say thatthe charterwas treasonous,only thatit was quixotic. I tellmyselfall the
time thatit is not I who have been stained,but ratherthose who have done this
to me. But thereisn'ta day thatgoes bywhen I don't feeldirty.This is what I want
you to explain to Philip Roth."
I wroteto Roth, at his publisher,when I returnedhome and received from
him a finenote, not "forgiving"V., but disclaimingany righteitherto forgiveor
to condemn decisions such as his. I managed to get the note delivered to V. in
Prague.
There is a coda to the story.Afterthe collapse of the Communistregime,V.'s
name surfaced on a listof those who had allegedlycollaborated withthe Czech
secretpolice. These listsare notoriouslydifficult to interpret:theylack corrobo-
ratingdetails and may,for all anyone knows,incriminateinnocentpeople. Per-
haps the inclusionof V.'sname was onlya referenceto the newspaper article.

1990

I was in Berlin fora lectureafterthe fallof the Wall and the reuniting
of the two halves of the city.I receiveda letterfroma famous theoristand withit
an essay called "New Wine in Old Bottles."The essay'sbasic point was that any-

6 REPRESENTATIONS
thinginterestingI had ever writtenhad already been anticipatedby its distin-
guished author, while all my mistakes were deviations from his position. I
understood that this was meant as a compliment.The theoristgraciouslypro-
posed thatwe have dinner aftermylecture,and I consented,though withmore
than the obvious amount of ambivalence. For I knew that he had taken early
retirement,not because of hidden service to the Communistsbut because of
hidden serviceto the Nazis. A fewyearsbeforeit had been revealed thatduring
the war he had been a memberof the WaffenSS, somethingthathe had had to
conceal throughouthis career in order to hold a professorshipin WestGermany.
I do not suppose that he was gassing children in trucks,but whateverhe was
doing, it cannot have been pretty.
There was another guestat dinner,an old acquaintance of mine named S., a
professorat an East Germanuniversity. S. had neverbeen a memberof the Com-
munistParty,but he was certainlyno dissident.Once when we were riding to-
getheron the elevated S-Bahn across the "death-zone"betweenthe two halves of
Berlin, he looked down at the mine fields,the guard towers,and the tangle of
barbed wire, and then sighed wearily,"A lamentable historicalnecessity."Now
withGermanyreunited,he lived in fear that,like R., he would be strippedof his
professorship.
I asked the famous theoristwhat he was doing in Berlin, for I knew thathis
home was in the south of Germany.He told me, witha glance at S., that he had
been appointed the head of one of the governmentcommissionsthatwas vetting
the facultyat East German universitiesto see who was hiding a secretStasi past.
S. did not seem as flusteredas I was by thisremark. He smiled and said, "You
know,Herr ProfessorDoktor,one of the thingsI have learned during thisdiffi-
culttimeis thatit reallyis possiblefora governmentto hide fromitsown people,
even people quite well placed, itsdarkestdesigns."

These stories,evidentlyso common thateven I, witha tinycircleof acquain-

tance in Eastern Europe, encountered them personally,make me profoundly
uneasy.When,in Knowledge andHumanInterests, JurgenHabermas called forclear
and unimpeded communication,I thoughtthe goal was utopian, and I thinkso
still.The literarytheoryof the past decades has insistedwithextraordinarytren-
chancy and power on the complex, ineradicable mediations between sign and
referent,and textualpleasure is bound up witha capacityto tolerateambiguity,
irony,and indirection.All this I know. And yet each of the exchanges I have
sketchedhas, as a piece of lived life,too manylayers,too many hintsof evasion,
secrecy,mixed motives.Each of thembespeaks a hidden past, unacknowledged,
unmastered,at once inadequatelyrememberedand incompletelyforgotten.Al-
mosteveryinch of Europe, one sometimesfeels,has been soaked withblood; the
wonder is thatthereare so fewtracesof it. But in the moral landscape of Eastern

Introduction 7
 Europe, itis as ifendless,leaden skieshave finallyburst,and duringthe torrential
rain bodies long buried have begun to surface,a discolored hand or head sud-
denlyvisibleabove the dirt.
A fewyearsago a literarycriticadvanced the argumentthatthe heightened
censorshipand oppressionin thecourtculturesof thesixteenthcenturywas good
forart,since it made writersacutelysensitiveto the nuances of verbalexpression.
Spare us in our liveswhat mightbe good forart.
-Stephen Greenblatt

Identityby History
Thedriver, nowconfidenttheywould reachtheir destination without
further delay,
leanedbackinhisseatandrecounted misadventures he'dexperienced inthe
funeral
trade.Lisolette hertired
half-listened, eyesfixed ontheroadaheadofthem. Having
nothing tosaybutfeelingtheneedtobepolite, sheaskedthedriver hisname."It's
MariaElena,"hereplied. Momentarily perplexed, Lisolette turnedtostudythisman
with a woman'name.Sensing herconfusion, thedriver explained,"It'smyChristian
name.I hada sexchange several
yearsago.Perhaps it'sstrange,buteverybody still
callsmeMariaElena.So why change it?". . .
Twomourners stoodthatafternoon byWolfgang Gerhard's opentomb as the
gravediggers slipped
ropes aroundthecasket andlowered itintotheearth.... Hatin
hand,MariaElena,thetranssexual hearsedriver, bowed hishead.
LaterthatdayLisolettecalledGittaStammer. "Theoldman'sdead,"shesaid.
"Which oldman?"herfriend asked."Peter It'sPeter, he'sdead.""Well, thank Godit's
over,"Gittasighed.With thosewords Lisolette Bossertendedherdeposition. "There is
nothing more I cansay,"shesaidas hershoulders slumped andherhandsdropped into
herlap.'

BY THE of the funeral on 8 February 1979 in Embu, twelve

TIME
miles westof Sdo Paulo, Brazil, WolfgangGerhard,a formerNazi corporal, had
been dead and in his grave for a year in Austria. Peter Hochbichler,who was
buried under Gerhard's name that day in Brazil, was probablyJosef Mengele,
who had died in a swimmingaccidentthe previousday.
Forensic anthropologists,like anxious and pedantic politicalleaders or the
authors of officiallysanctioned historytextbooks,want unambiguous proofs of
identity-individual and collectivealike. But what "if Moses was an Egyptian"?2
Are not instability,
contingency, and uncertaintyessential,basic elementsof iden-
tity,both psychologicaland anthropological?Is it certain that Imre Nagy, the
executed primeministerof Hungary,was thesame person when he stood in front
of hisjudges in 1958 and decided not to ask for pardon as he was in the 1930s,
when he joined the KGB in Moscow? Was Imre Nagy morally,legally,even
anthropologicallythesame personin 1958 as he had been more thantwentyyears
before? Is not identityinherentlyproblematic?
"We inherita nominalisttradition,according to which personal identityis

8 REPRESENTATIONS
constitutedby memory.Any typeof amnesia resultsin somethingbeing stolen
fromoneself; how much worseifit is replaced byfalsememories,a nonself?"3If
memoryconstitutesidentity,then it is history-that is, the writingof history-
that establishesand reestablishesidentity.The question, however,seems to be
more disturbingthan Ian Hacking's Aristotelianideas suggest,since any recon-
structionof the past thatreflectsthe stockof memorychanges it as well. Recon-
structionmakes sense only in the frameworkof a new narrative.In order to
compose a new story,elementsof the old one are restructured,rearranged,re-
figured,leftout, put aside, overlooked,disremembered-forgotten.Forgetting
an event,like rememberingit,makes sense only contextually.Forgettingis con-
stitutive,an essentialelementof "rememberingotherwise,"of rewritinghistory,
of reconstituting identity.
By writing,the historianauthenticatesthe story,and byauthenticating(pro-
viding proofs,supplyingdirector indirectsupportingevidence, etc.), the histo-
rian de-authenticatesotherexistingor possible stories.Forgetting-in thisway-
is not (just) a possible loss but a conscious act directedagainst the existingrecol-
lectionsof the past.
By "rememberingotherwise,"the historianconstructsan alternativeversion
that liberatesone (a person, a group, a nation) fromone's past. Forgettingthus
has a liberatingeffect.But what is leftout naturallyhas not been lost forever.
Repression-as Freud remindsus-contains an interiorrepresentation.Withthe
help of the historianone can intervenein the past and, like the writerof a novel,
go back and rewritethe story.
In this sense, 1989 was a liberatingmoment. In the contextof the political
events,the received,lived,rememberedpast seemedjust not to make sense any-
more. In the face of thisdead end, the past lostitsmeaningboth forthe believers
and for the skeptics:for the perpetrators,the collaborators,and even for the
dissidents.An alternativestorywas needed, in the contextof which the mosaics
("the old Mosaic teaching")4of the past could be rearranged and given new,
proper places in the chronology.
It is instructive,in this context,to see what happened to 4 April, the old
Communistnationalholidayin Hungary.This was the day in 1945 when the Red
Armyliberated the countryfromthe Germans. Around 1988 some historians,
allegedlydrivenby a pure positivisturge, startedto question the authenticityof
the date of 4 April. Accordingto some newlyfound documents,the last German
soldiers were forced out of the countrynot on 4 April but ratheron 3 April or
11 April and, accordingto stillothersources,on 13 April. In thisway,the date of
4 April, on which the Communist version of modern Hungarian historical
identityrested in part, was increasinglydestabilized. Then, in relation to 4
November-the day in 1956 when the Soviet troops came back to Hungary in
order to defeatthe revolution-4 Aprillostitshistoricalintelligibility completely.
Having thus become contextless,4 April had to fall out of historicalmemory.

Introduction 9
 Today it isjust an ordinaryworkingday,one thatdoes not arouse emotionssince
it is hardlyeven remembered.
After1989, in theemergingnew historicalmemory,socialismcame to be seen
as a historicaldetour,a viewwhichimpliesthatsomewhere,in a rediscoveredand
reestablishedcontinuity,there existsa straighthistoricaldirection.The task of
the new memory-workwas to bridge the last authenticpre-Communisthistori-
cal momentwiththe startingpoint of post-Communism.Thus genuine histori-
cal identity,unalteredsameness(to use the synonymwithwhich Roget'sThesaurus
defines the term), could be reestablished in the minds of post-Communist
conservatives.
But a historicalmosaicis not likeJacksonPollock'sabstractexpressionismso
much as it is like a Marcel Duchamp readymade, exhibited in the Museum of
Modern Art. It is refigured,recontextualized,but firstselected from what is
already there. The historian(usually) does not make up the dead, but instead
transformsthemin the name and forthe interestof the living.
Josef Mengele made a fatalmistakein not understandingthe intricaciesof
identity.This mistakecost him his postmortemidentification."Mengele had told
Mrs. Bossert thathe wentto a Japanese dentistbecause, he said,just as all Japa-
nese looked alike to Europeans, all Europeans mustlook the same toJapanese."5
But forKasumaya Tutiya,theJapanese dentist,dental X rays,of eitherJapanese
or German Nazis, were not identical;rather,theyrevealed importantindices of
individual identity.The man who discovered the X rayswas a certain Stephen
Dachi: a fifty-five-year-old United States consul general in Sao Paulo, who was
born in Hungary,raised in Romania, and capturedbyRussian soldiers;who then
escaped and took refuge in a synagogue,earned a medical degree in Canada,
taughtdentistryin America,and finallybecame a career diplomat. Once he dis-
covered the X raysin the filesof theJapanese dentist(who, to Mengele, looked
the same as all otherJapanese), itwas no longerimpossibleto identifythe exper-
imental anthropologist,all too well known to the few survivorsstrugglingwith
theirmemoriesfromthe concentrationcamp of Auschwitz.
-Istvan Rev

Afterthe Deluge
THE TITLE OF thisspecial issue, "IdentifyingHistories: Eastern Eu-
rope Before and After 1989," should be read as thematizingand interrogating
such impressions.Even the relativelystraightforward rubric "Eastern Europe"
raises hard questions. Far frombeing merelyneutral,geographical description
carriesheavyideological cargo in "that"partof the world,whateverwe choose to
call it. Besides the orientalizingundertoneswhich have been exposed as part of
an imperial "Occidentalism,"the "East" became, afterYalta, an official,treaty-
sanctionedOther to the "West."But the alternativesare tendentiousin theirown

10 REPRESENTATIONS
right:theMitteleuropa of German imperialaspirations;the cosmopolitanCentral
Europe of the Habsburg empireand itssuccessorstateslinkedbyculturalcapitals
fromVienna to Zagreb, Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw; or various conceptions
of the "homeland" that reject the possibilityof transcendingnational or ethnic
differences.Moreover,the "Russian soul" in the titleof one paper collected here
calls to mind the long-standingcomplicationsof deciding what "Russia" means
and to what extentit is "European." One way or another,all these labels tend to
separate and divide "Europes" (and Europeans) fromone another and fromthe
restof the world. This linguisticcurtainmay prove as effectiveas an iron one in
blockingmutual recognitionand understanding.
When the"Americanacademics"referredto earlierin thisintroductionlaugh
at R.'s faithin the truthfulness of the GDR's leadership,itmaybe not onlybecause
theydoubt his position(which,in fact,turnsout to be false)but also because they
know somethingabout the mendacityof theirown leaders. The corrosiveimper-
atives of the "military-industrial complex," state security,news management,
and national honor were hardlylimitedto one side of the cold war,nor can we
have much confidencethattheyhave disappeared withit. Westernintellectuals
and academics have mostlydeferred to the superior travailsof their Eastern
European counterparts-rightly,no doubt. But this can be understood as a
continuationof the cold war byothermeans,as a condescendinggestureof mag-
nanimityfromthewinningside; or conversely,as a barelyveiled acknowledgment
of embarrassmentor guiltfortheballyhoooverthe "victories"of the West.Mean-
while,an exoneratingcasuistryof victimizationand scapegoating has become a
familiarresponse in the formerSovietbloc. How do we deal witha kind of code-
pendency that we may want to break but may not be able to do without?For a
start,readers willnot findflattering mirrorsin thisspecial issue.
The date ourin titleraises unsettlingissues, too. Although 1989 stillseems
likelyto go down in historyas an annusmirabilis, its significancein the periodic
tables of historiansremainsuncertain.One chronologythatarose in the wake of
eventsidentifiesthe yearsfrom1945 (or 1948) to 1989 (or 1990) as a more or less
coherentperiod, and in so doing has promptednarrativesof Sovietdomination,
the cold war,and theirlocal variations.Historycan thus be writteneithertrium-
phally,as a storyof resistanceleading to liberation,or forgetfully, as if forty-odd
yearsof Communismwere a historicalgap except forthe complicitiesof someone
else, whetherthenomenklatura, informers,or indeed naive idealists.Begin instead
at 1917 (or 1918), and 1989 (or 1991) marks the end of the twentiethcentury
construed as an age of ideological struggle,bipolar internationalpolitics,and
totalitarianalternativesinaugurated in the BolshevikRevolution.Although this
periodizationis more expansive,itis hardlyneutralinsofaras ithistoricizesteleo-
logical "Free World"rhetoric.Finally,the uncannilyplausible symmetryof 1789
and 1989 can be takenas authorizingstillgrandernarratives.Like any large-scale
historiographicalconstruct,thisscheme risksmakingany new eventlook de'jdvu

Introduction 11
 and, since it forecloseshistoricaltrajectories,proclaiminga premature "end of
history."Surely thiscenturyhas sufferedenough already fromfailuresto make
historicaldistinctionsand fromthe convictionthatthis time,at last, the millen-
nium is trulyat hand.
That the factsof geographyand chronologyturnout to be contestedrepre-
sentationswillhardlysurprisereaders of thisjournal. But "identifying histories"
raises the stakes. Representations-the "image" in all senses of the term-were
power in the ritual technologiesof the dictatorshipsof Eastern Europe before
1989 and in the demonstrationsof noncompliance that undermined them. Yet
all sides proclaimed thatrepresentationcould be abolished by representation-
say,"reallyexisting"socialismor the utopian momentof solidarityin the will of
the people. One routine account of the aftermathof 1989 cites-more or less
approvingly-the returnof suppressed ethnichatreds,social grievances,real or
imagined historicalinjustices.Ritual exoticizingof the East has sometimesposed
as cogent analysisin accounts of thissort. It would be more accurate-and cer-
tainly less invidious-to note the current proliferationof representationsof
Eastern Europe's past(s),some of themindeed previouslysuppressed,othersvol-
untarilyforgotten,stillothersnewlymade, but all of them competingfor legiti-
macy. Are we to say,then, that one representationis as good as another,that
historyonly devolves into self-servinghistories?If not, how are we to assess the
truthclaims of differentversionsof the past? What consequences, if any,follow
fromthe assessmentswe make? Since 1989, the falsevirtueof havinga fewstock
answershas givenway to the real virtueof havingall too many.
Partlyfor thisreason our special issue is wide-rangingwithoutany pretense
of being comprehensive,let alone definitive.The essaysreach fromeastern Ger-
many to Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, and places in between,especiallyHungary.
They suggesthistoricalconnectionsand analogies as farback as prerevolutionary
France and Russia and the revolutionsof 1848. Variationsof rememberingand
forgettingrevolve around the signal dates of the post-World War II era in
EasternEurope-1945, 1948, 1956, 1968, 198 1,and of course 1989. Occasionally
the Nazi prelude looms large,darkeningeven the best attemptsto come to terms
withit. But as much as by anythingelse, the essaysare linked by the chastened,
thoughnot intentionally cynicalor despairing,mood of a findesieclelikelyto end
withneithera bang nor a whimper.
For the issues the contributorsaddress do not lend themselvesto resolution
by Diogenes' lamp, to a quest forsimplevirtue,or, forthatmatter,pure vice. In
the glare of attentiontrainedon the wreckageof failed regimes,the essays that
followseek out the shadowyareas between individual and collectiveidentities,
public and privateresponsibilities,the insistentbut volatileurgings of memory
and the more distanced perspectivesof history.In one way or another,all the
contributorscontendwitha cunningof historythathas compromisedprincipled
choices forhalfa centuryin EasternEurope. It takesan effortof historicalimag-

12 REPRESENTATIONS
ination these days to rememberthatCommunismused to be accused of having
an excess of principle. In some cases we may already be close to a time when it
will be hard to recall many virtuesin the post-Communistorder. But these are
preciselythe oversimplifications, both those of misguided enthusiasmand those
of convenientamnesia, thatour essayswarn against.
In whatRichard Esbenshade calls "the Kundera paradigm,"charactersin The
Book ofLaughterand Forgetting rememberas a formof protestagainst the Com-
munistregime in Czechoslovakia,even as theytryto forget(though Milan Kun-
dera does not) incriminatingpersonal recollections.Sarah Farmer'sessay shows
how improvisedwooden crossesforthe Germans who died in the Sovietconver-
sion of the Nazi concentrationcamps at Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen elide
life stories of possible complicitywith the Nazi regime. The Slavophiles and
nationalistsof Svetlana Boym'spaper celebratean autochthonous"Russian soul"
whose inventiontheyowed to interactionwith the West and whose imperialist
potentialwas mostfullyrealized under Communism.Even theingenuouslyreclu-
sive virtueof Andrei Plesu's philosophicalmentor,ConstantinNoica, turnsout
to be, as the philosopher must have known,partlya functionof the Romanian
dictatorship'serraticvigilance.Ironywould be the appropriate trope,were it not
that ironydepends on a historicaland moral transcendencethat cases such as
these cut down to size.
So where does this leave "identifyinghistories"in Eastern Europe? One
answeris anticlimactic, deliberatelyso. We are sometimestold thatEastern Euro-
peans have "too much history," when the problem seems to be just the opposite
afterdecades of Orwellianrevisionism.In thiscontextthe unspectacularworkof
historians,completewiththe fallibilities thatalwaysattendit,looks positivelyrad-
ical,in theetymologicalsense of goingback to roots.However unheroicor under-
theorized,the most excitingoutcome mightbe "histories"rather than History.
The cold war cannot have thawed enough until we see the historiographical
runoffin many intricate,sometimescrisscrossing,channels. The fiercelyparti-
san separatismsthat blightEastern Europe-and not only Eastern Europe, of
course-are notto be fearedso much fortheexposure of heterogeneoushistories
as for mythsof national and ethnicpurity.Mixed identitiesand intersectinghis-
torieshave somehowto be counted among the historicalrichesof the region over
and against solipsism,nihilism,ressentiment, of denial. This
and other afflictions
special issue is a small step in thatdirection.
-RandolphStarn

Introduction 13
 Notes

1. ChristopherJoyceand Eric Stover,Witnessesfrom theGrave:TheStoriesBonesTell(Boston,

1991), 192-93.
2. See Sigmund Freud's essay "If Moses Was an Egyptian. . . ," in Mosesand Monotheism,
vol. 23 of The StandardEditionof the CompletePsychologicalWorksof SigmundFreud
(London, 1964), 17-53.
3. Ian Hacking, "Two Souls in One Body," in QuestionsofEvidence:Proof,Practice,and
PersuasionAcrosstheDisciplines,ed. James Chandler,Arnold Davidson, and Harry Ha-
rootunian(Chicago, 1994), 458.
4. Freud, "If Moses Was an Egyptian,"51.
5. Joyceand Stover,Witnesses, 207.

14 REPRESENTATIONS