In this paper I will investigate how views and attitudes with regard to the post-communist past shape political culture in East Central Europe. I will outline a theoretical framework that views the post-1989 period as a critical juncture not only for political and economic transformation, but also as a window for change in national identity. While identity is generally held to be highly stable, I will contend that the collapse of communism involved discarding wholesale official notions of national identities that were forged to legitimize Soviet rule. In the wake of this departure from the old narrative, a struggle over what ought to be the new narrative ensued. This struggle involved rival interpretations of a variety of things, the meaning of the communist past prominent among them. My hypothesis is that this struggle over identity and over the past in particular shaped the political arena in post-communist Europe and provided a salient dimension of political conflict.
I will propose a research agenda that will seek to test this hypothesis by applying it to transitional justice policies. The dominant explanation for varying degrees to which post-communist countries have adopted transitional justice, lustration in particular, points to the mode of transition: where there were round table negotiations, out-going communist leaders negotiated amnesties; where there were no negotiations, there were no amnesties, and transitional justice reached further as a result. Such explanations further stress the extent to which lustration served as a political tool to sideline opponents that would presumably be affected by it. At the same time, while some of these more base motivations are often highlighted, many scholars still stress that some measure of transitional justice is an essential ingredient for democratization.
I will argue that while mode of transition is an important factor in understanding extent and timing of transitional justice, such processes and the particular form and shape of the measures that are adopted are most fruitfully understood as part of a struggle over national identity and the correct interpretation of the past. On the basis of an in-depth comparison between the Czech Republic and Slovakia (as well as more casual comparisons with other countries such as Estonia and Bulgaria) I will seek to illustrate how transitional justice, possibly in addition to being merely an attempt to get political opponents out of the way, is part over a larger struggle to define national identity and the national past. Viewing post-communist politics through this lens will contribute to an understanding of the continued salience of such policies, more than two decades after the collapse of communism, and will ultimately speak to the question whether post-communism as a category is still useful.
