From Heaven to Earth

Abstract

The article explores the role of memory politics in building European identity. Memory politics is considered a functioning system of interactions and communication between different actors with regard to the political uses of the past. Memory politics is one of the key instruments for shaping the macro-political identity of a community. Supranational identity plays only a subsidiary role; at the supranational level, it is impossible to form a stable frame of collective memory. At the same time, European Union institutions are able to act as influential mnemonic actors to develop and implement various strategies of pro-European memory politics. Today, the strategy of recognizing the exceptional role of the Holocaust as a pan-European tragedy is subject to a fundamental revision in the EU. Attempts to "equalize" the crimes of Nazism and Communism indicate the search for an alternative mnemonic strategy. At