A Nation Must Think Before it Acts
The Battle for Memory: Populism vs. Pluralism in Public History
A nation must think before it acts.
The Battle for Memory: Populism vs. Pluralism in Public History
Baltic Ways presents a bonus episode from our partners at the EUROPAST podcast. The EUROPAST podcast explores Europe’s most pressing challenges of public history, investigating the complex and contested spaces of public memory, memory activism, and best practices for engaging the public in a dialogue about the past.
In this episode, hosts Professor Violeta Davoliūtė (Vilnius University, Lithuanian Institute of History) and Professor Dovilė Budrytė (Vilnius University / Georgia Gwinnett College / Vytautas Magnus University) are joined by renowned political scientist Professor Jan Kubik (Rutgers University) to explore the critical intersection of political populism and the misuse of history.
Professor Kubik revisits his influential typology of memory actors, focusing on the central conflict between “mnemonic warriors”, who promote a single, binary, and often fictionalized version of the past, and “mnemonic pluralists,” who advocate for complexity, debate, and the inclusion of multiple perspectives.
The discussion tackles pressing questions: How do populist movements weaponize historical narratives to create “us vs. them” dichotomies? How does this assault on history sustain authoritarian regimes and threaten democratic institutions? And what is the role of public history in a world where the past has become a battleground?
This conversation offers a vital framework for understanding the high-stakes struggle over memory and its central role in the fight to defend democracy today.
The podcast series is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union under the WIDERA programme (EUROPAST project, Grant Agreement No. 101079466).
Music: Istok Zapad, Whiteheads. ℗ Croatia Records, 2021.
Image: Adobe Stock
