In Search of Lost Genocide: Historical Policy and International Politics in Post-1989 Eastern Europe

Abstract

This article discusses the tendency of many post-communist states to present their past sufferings as genocides. It ties this “search of lost genocides” to the concept of “historical policy” and its intellectual and political promoters throughout the post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe, concentrating on the case of Azerbaijan, Georgia and its breakaway regions, Ukraine, and the Baltic States and demonstrates how newly established states and their political elites invest significant efforts in constructing the vision of various cataclysmic events as genocides. Thus, this process has (and will continue to have) an impact on global politics as a result of recognition/denial disputes, often waged in foreign countries' legislatures, conflicts that affect third-party states and international organisations, and attempts to use genocides as a tool to induce international involvement in political conflicts.