Project overview
Since the end of Soviet-era censorship in 1989, the Slavic nations of Central and Eastern Europe have been embroiled within fraught ‘memory wars’ over competing narratives of Jewish and non-Jewish suffering during the Holocaust years. The role of genre film in negotiating these contestations even before communism’s collapse, however, has been critically overlooked.
This interdisciplinary research project aims to examine the cultural significance of Slavic Horror cinema as a site of Jewish othering as well as Jewish-Slavic entanglement and reconciliation. By analysing the politics of Jewish presence and absence within a range of post-war arthouse and mainstream films from Central and Eastern Europe, it will be the first to read the Slavic Horror subgenre as a generative mode of Jewish-Slavic memory production. Combining Jewish, Slavic, Holocaust and film studies, the research will make an unprecedented contribution to understanding how the region has confronted its ‘dark’ past of local complicity in wartime Jewish murder.
This interdisciplinary research project aims to examine the cultural significance of Slavic Horror cinema as a site of Jewish othering as well as Jewish-Slavic entanglement and reconciliation. By analysing the politics of Jewish presence and absence within a range of post-war arthouse and mainstream films from Central and Eastern Europe, it will be the first to read the Slavic Horror subgenre as a generative mode of Jewish-Slavic memory production. Combining Jewish, Slavic, Holocaust and film studies, the research will make an unprecedented contribution to understanding how the region has confronted its ‘dark’ past of local complicity in wartime Jewish murder.
