Lucy Jeffery, Anna Váradi (eds)

Replaying Communism

Trauma and Nostalgia in European Cultural Production

Repercussions of communism are still felt throughout Central and Eastern Europe. In fact, specters of communism remain vivid enough to inspire a wide range of contemporary cultural production, from video games to museum exhibits. This volume demonstrates how the region remains in a state of transitioning away from communism, not having secured a fully post-communist identity.
The volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach to extend debates on the lasting impact of the communist era across Central and Eastern Europe with chapters thematically threaded through concepts including curation, immersion, interaction, humor and authenticity. A ‘trauma/nostalgia paradigm’ emerges as the tissue connecting the plurality of post-communist efforts employed to address the region’s contested pasts. Twelve original essays by contributors from both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the region detail how twenty-first-century cultural productions reengage the communist past. The impact of this past is seen as fundamental to understanding and shaping Central and Eastern European identities.

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Editors

Lucy Jeffery

Lucy Jeffery is Co-Founder of the Replaying Communism project which received funding from the AHRC SWW-DTP in 2023. She has published on Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Ezra Pound, Ingeborg Bachmann, and Magda Szabó. Her monograph—Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process—was published by Ibidem in 2021. She then co-edited a special issue for the leading environmental literature journal, Green Letters, entitled ‘A New Poetics of Space’ (2022). In 2024 she was a Visegrad Fellow at Central European University and the Open Society Archives.

Anna Váradi

Anna Varadi is Co-Founder of the Replaying Communism project which received funding from the AHRC SWW-DTP in 2023. She has published on media, gender, and national identity in the work of Magda Szabó, and has served as a translator from Hungarian and German for several academic projects. Since 2020, she has worked extensively with displaced people and forced migrants who are pursuing Higher Education. Anna currently works at Cardiff University, Wales.

Title: Replaying Communism
Subtitle: Trauma and Nostalgia in European Cultural Production
Editors: Lucy Jeffery; Anna Váradi
Price: € 134,00 excl. VAT
ISBN: 9789048574322
Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 292
Language: English
Publication date: 10 - 12 - 2025
Dimensions: 15.6 x 23.4 cm
Series: Memory, Heritage and Public History in Central and Eastern Europe - CEU Press
Categories: Eastern Central Europe; Modern History; Sociology and Social History
Discipline: History, Art History, and Archaeology
Imprint: CEU Press

Table of Contents

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List of Illustrations
Foreword - Aniko Imre
Acknowledgements
Introduction
The Trauma/Nostalgia Paradigm in Post-communist Cultural Production - Lucy Jeffery and Anna Váradi
Chapter 1 Drawing the Romanian Revolution at the History Museum of Brasov - Carmen Levick
Chapter 2 Retelling Soviet-era Anecdotes in Russian Online Media - Kateryna Yeremieieva
Chapter 3 Gábor Zsigmond Papp’s Retro Series and the Cultural Afterlife of Hungarian State Propaganda Films - Lucia Szemetová
Chapter 4 Communicating Post-communist Identity through the Museum of Life Under Communism, Warsaw - Samantha Vaughn
Chapter 5 -The Museumification of Victims of Communism and Bulgaria’s Belene Forced Labor Camp - Georgeta Nazarska
Chapter 6 The Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, Grutas Park and Lithuania’s Narrative of the Communist Past - Katarzyna Jarosz
Chapter 7 Televising Division and Reunification in the German TV Series Deutschland 89 - Lucy Jeffery and Anna Váradi
Chapter 8 -Socialist Settings in Contemporary Hungarian and Czech Quality Television - Veronika Hermann
Chapter 9 (Re)Playing the Hungarian Revolution in Contemporary Board Games - David Scott Diffrient and Sam Ernst
Chapter 10 Uprooted Heritage as Curatorial Method and Artistic Medium in the Post-Yugoslav Context - Natasa Jagdhuhn
Chapter 11 Germany’s Traumatic Communist Past through Contemporary Radio Life Narratives - Iana Nikitenko
Chapter 12 The Hauntology of Communism in an Estonian Computer Role-playing Game - Claus Toft-Nielsen
Conclusion - Lucy Jeffery and Anna Váradi
About the Authors
Bibliography
Index

Reviews and Features

“A must read for anyone interested in the contemporary resonance of communism and the dynamic of public history and heritage in Central and Eastern Europe.”
- Sabina Mihelj, Professor of Media and Cultural Analysis, Loughborough University, UK

“Replaying Communism is an invaluable contribution to the study of memory and trauma in post-socialist societies.”
- Gerard Delanty, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Sussex University, UK

“It is terribly difficult to be a successful opposition party today. One must accumulate a wide variety of knowledge, and this excellent volume can help with this.”
- Gábor Demszky, Mayor of Budapest (1990–2010) and founding member of The Alliance of Free Democrats Hungarian Liberal Party

“Replaying Communism’s theoretical underpinnings of the trauma/nostalgia paradigm can fruitfully serve as a template beyond the regional coverage of the volume.”
- Maria Todorova, Professor Emerita at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, US

“This volume provides a compelling intervention in contemporary memory studies.”
- David Clarke, Professor of Modern German Studies, Cardiff University, UK

“Replaying Communism is a compelling examination of the interplay of nostalgia and trauma that determines how contemporary cultural productions re-imagine the communist era.”
- Maya Nadkarni, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Swarthmore College, US