Paratopic Recollections. Communism in Swedish Collective Memory

Abstract

This paper discusses the collective memory of communism in Sweden after 1989 and its role in the process of Europeanization. Sweden lacks the direct experience of communism and any such recollections are bound to be mediated. Such memories of experiences outside the Swedish political and social context (para-contextual or para-topic instances) are examined in terms of transnational collective memory. That is why the analysis treats these memories as part of the process of Europeanization. The material amounts to institutional and rhetorical examples featuring the memory of communism. Three sets of concepts help scrutinize these sources: Klas-Göran Karlsson’s view of three-wave European integration (economic, political and cultural), Avishai Margalit’s distinction between ‘thick’ (family, nation) and ‘thin’ (humanity) communities of remembrance where the ethics of memory can work transnationally in a context of human rights, and Jeffrey Andrew Barash’s connection between ‘public memory’ and ‘imagination’. By discussing the material within this framework, the argument concludes that paratopic recollections and the dynamics of Europeanization converge, highlighting a new aspect in this process of integration.