Living with Different Pasts: Europe's Memory Wars Discussed in Bratislava

For three days at the end of May 2026, historians, archivists, educators and museum professionals met in Bratislava to examine how the past is being put to political use, and how memory institutions can respond through research, education, archival work and public debate. The Nation's Memory Institute co-organised the Symposium and took part in its academic and accompanying programme.

14th European Remembrance Symposium in Moyzes Hall, Bratislava. Photo: Jan Prosiński / ENRS

The 14th European Remembrance Symposium took place from 27 to 29 May 2026 in the Art Nouveau Moyzes Hall in the main building of the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava. It was organised by the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity together with the Nation's Memory Institute as co-organiser, under the theme Memory Wars: Facts, Disinformation and the Politics of Remembrance. Partner institutions included the Polish Institute in Bratislava, the Umelka Gallery, the host faculty and the Bratislava City Museum.

The Symposium brought together historians, archivists, educators, museum professionals and representatives of remembrance institutions from across Europe and beyond. The three-day programme included a keynote lecture, two panel discussions, parallel workshops, institutional case studies, short project presentations in the Turbo Presentations format, an accompanying cultural programme and a visit to Devín Castle.

The theme reflected a development that memory institutions across Europe have been observing for some time. Collective memory shapes group and national identities and sustains a common frame of values. As the organisers explained when presenting the event, memory can also become an object and an instrument of political conflict, including in the context of hybrid warfare. The Symposium examined this dual role without treating memory conflict as a problem limited to any one part of Europe.

A city of layers

Professor Catherine Horel delivering the keynote lecture. Photo: Jan Prosiński / ENRS

Professor Catherine Horel, Research Director at CNRS/CETOBaC in Paris and President of the International Committee for Historical Sciences, opened the academic programme with a keynote lecture built around the image of the palimpsest. A palimpsest is a manuscript written over repeatedly, with traces of earlier texts remaining visible beneath the newest layer.

Bratislava served as her example. The city has carried different names, belonged to different states and been home to Slovak, Hungarian, German and Jewish communities whose histories occupy the same streets. These experiences have produced several overlapping accounts of the city's past that do not always agree. Professor Horel presented this condition as characteristic of Europe more widely rather than exceptional.

Memory – Power – Conflict

The opening panel, Memory – Power – Conflict, was moderated by Professor Jay Winter of Yale University. It brought together Professor Dovilė Budrytė of Georgia Gwinnett College and Vytautas Magnus University, Professor Tuomas Forsberg of Tampere University, Professor Catherine Horel, Professor Ruxandra Ivan of the University of Bucharest and Professor Arkady Rzegocki of the Jagiellonian University.

In setting out the panel's terms before the Symposium, Professor Winter described the memory wars of the present generation as unavoidable collisions over the past eighty years of European history. He asked whether disagreement about the past should be understood as a danger to democracy or as a sign of political plurality.

He proposed three main questions for the discussion. Do conflicts over the Second World War still dominate European memory politics eighty years after 1945? Is the concept of decolonisation useful in describing the current development of memory politics? How does contested memory affect the work of museums?

Workshops and educational practice

Workshop programme at the Umelka Gallery. Michal Keim of the Nation's Memory Institute and Urszula Bijoś of the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity co-led the workshop Disinformation in the Field of Education. Photo: Jan Prosiński / ENRS

On the mornings of 28 and 29 May, parallel workshops at the Umelka Gallery focused on practical approaches to education, media literacy and the identification of disinformation.

Marcin Sikorski led a workshop on memory as an instrument of hybrid warfare, examining propaganda strategies across different media and possible countermeasures. Florian Tuder of the House of European History worked with participants on teaching media literacy in secondary schools during a session held on the first morning.

The Nation's Memory Institute participated directly in this part of the programme. Michal Keim of the Institute co-led the workshop Disinformation in the Field of Education with Urszula Bijoś of the Network on both mornings. The session dealt with practical tools, critical-thinking strategies and methods that teachers can use when working with manipulative or misleading historical content. It connected research on disinformation with classroom practice.

Institutional case studies

The case studies session, moderated by Joanna Orłoś of the Network, brought together representatives of museums, research institutions and remembrance organisations working in Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Slovakia and Germany.

Iratxe Momoitio Astorkia of the Gernika Peace Museum recalled that two contradictory accounts of the bombing of Gernika in 1937 emerged almost immediately after the event. One of them was subsequently institutionalised under Francoist rule. The example illustrated that disputes over the past may concern the evidence itself, as well as the political and institutional authority to determine what that evidence means.

Cecilia Badano of the LRE Foundation described transnational remembrance work that does not seek to establish a single narrative of the Second World War. Instead, it creates opportunities for memories rooted in different local and national experiences to be discussed together.

During the Turbo Presentations, participants had up to 120 seconds to introduce their organisation or project. The format enabled a wider range of initiatives to be presented and helped participants identify possible partners for future cooperation.

Dissonances of memory

The closing panel, Dissonances of Memory: Europe United or Divided?, was moderated by Pavol Demeš, former Slovak Minister of International Relations and a long-standing civic and foreign-policy expert. It considered whether Europe can sustain political solidarity despite divergent national experiences and traditions of remembrance.

Professor Heidi Hein-Kircher of the Martin Opitz Library Herne and Ruhr University Bochum spoke about the difficulty of establishing a genuinely common European memory. She pointed to the distinct national traditions and cultural settings through which historical experience passes from one generation to the next.

Professor Andrzej Nowak of the Jagiellonian University addressed unity in historical interpretation. His remarks emphasised the value of preserving open disagreement rather than imposing a single reading of the past.

Dr Georgi Georgiev of the Institute for Human Sciences and Central European University in Vienna discussed contemporary propaganda and its capacity to reshape perceptions of historical time.

The discussion did not seek to establish a single common position. Instead, it presented contrasting approaches to the relationship between historical interpretation, political unity and democratic debate.

Devín and the Iron Curtain

Attention, Border!. Photo: ÚPN

On the afternoon of 28 May, participants travelled to Devín Castle for a historical walk and a visit to the exhibition Attention, Border!, prepared by the Bratislava City Museum in cooperation with the Nation's Memory Institute. Participants who did not join the visit were offered a guided tour of Bratislava city centre.

Devín made the theme of historical layering tangible. The castle is a site of considerable historical and symbolic importance in the Slovak national tradition. Under the communist regime, it lay within the border zone and became effectively inaccessible to the public during the 1950s.

According to the documented cases presented in the exhibition, at least 7,500 people were recorded as detained while attempting to cross the Slovak–Austrian border without authorisation. More than ninety per cent were heading towards Austria, and at least 42 people died at that section of the border. The exhibition draws on authentic Border Guard documents from 1951 to 1989 held in the Archive of the Nation's Memory Institute.

The Institute's role and the Slovak presidency

Several contributions questioned whether European solidarity depends on a single interpretation of the past. The Symposium instead provided a setting in which different historical experiences and interpretations could be discussed openly and critically.

As the local co-organiser, the Nation's Memory Institute supported the practical organisation of the event in Bratislava. Its responsibilities included coordinating venues, local partners, participant transfers and parts of the accompanying programme. The Institute also participated in the workshop programme and helped organise the visit to Devín Castle and the exhibition Attention, Border!

In July 2026, Slovakia assumed the presidency of the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity. Jerguš Sivoš, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Nation's Memory Institute, became Chair of the Network's Steering Committee.

The issues discussed in Moyzes Hall, including the political use of history, disinformation and the role of memory institutions in democratic societies, will remain relevant during Slovakia's presidency of the Network.

Recordings and photographs

Recordings of the opening speeches, keynote lecture, panel discussions, Turbo Presentations, institutional case studies and closing remarks are available on the official website of the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity. The page also includes the programme and a photographic gallery from the event.

View the recordings and photographic gallery