A traumatic event or process engenders a discourse of grievance (transmitted through the media, literature, popular culture, etc). Representatives of such discourse are seen or see themselves as victims. The social sciences and historical literature have explored these kinds of phenomenon. István Bibó analysed Nazism as political hysteria in 1942–1944 and interpreted the characteristics of the political cultures of the East European small countries as hysterical reactions to their traumatic historical experiences in 1942–1946.Reference Bibó ¹ Wolfgang Schivelbusch has examined the culture of those vanquished in the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War, and the First World War in terms of national trauma, mourning, and healing in 2003.Reference Schivelbusch ² In the European Review Focus on ‘Regimes of Memory’ in October 2013, Pieter Emmer interpreted the memories of the German Occupation and the Atlantic trade and slavery in the Netherlands. Chantal Kesteloot showed the competing regimes of memory of the First and Second World Wars in Belgium. Árpád Welker looked at the role of consolidation and the challenge of populism in Finnish political culture and historiography. Alessandro Cavalli pictured the memory of Fascism and anti-Fascist Resistance in Italy. Josep Gelonch-Solé examined the consequences of opening up the mass graves of the Spanish Civil War as challenges to the public discourse on the Franco Era. Tamás Sajó brought a case study of Lemberg/Lwów/Lvov/Lviv as Erinnerungslandschaft. Nándor Bárdi reviewed the different images of the future of the Hungarian Communities in neighbouring countries. I reviewed the main features of the two competing regimes of memory and their opposing political languages of the post-communist/dictatorial political regimes in Central, Eastern and Southern European countries. Finally, the same Focus had István Bibó’s interpretation of the Greek and Turkish opposition in Cyprus as the watershed between two different nation building processes. ³

In the current Focus we continue to reflect on ‘Regimes of Memory’ via other case studies, providing other departure points and preconditions for future comparisons. Dubravko Lovrenovic finds there to be three competing and opposing regimes of memory in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Gražina Sviderskite studies the odyssey of the Lithuanian regimes of memory. Svend Erik Larsen discusses the lack of a basis of common socialization of democratic political communities in Australia and its consequences. Éva Kovács interprets different traumatic events as parts of opposing regimes of memory in current Hungary. Pablo Sánchez León looks at the memory of Holy Wars in Spain. And I give a case study of historiography and memory – politics from the beginning of the twentieth century.