This anthology explores the memory work performed by Baltic, Central and East European far-right actors in the online space. Situated at the crossroads between memory studies, far-right studies and media studies, the volume’s seven chapters show how a wide range of far-right actors, from small movements to major parties, have exploited digital communication technologies in order to establish their plays with the past in the mainstream discourses of their respective national contexts. With focus on the online memory work of the far right in Austria, Belarus, Czechia, Lithuania, Romania, Sweden, and Ukraine, the anthology eviscerates the nexus between politics, media and memory in order to show how the spaces of flow of digital communication proper of the network society have empowered the memory work of marginal but dangerous societal actors. As the anthology’s chapters show, the online space has raised the visibility and success of organised intolerant groups and, consequently, it has magnified the societal impact of their memory work. Thanks to digital media, the memory work of the far right can compete on an equal level with state-endorsed memory politics. By meddling with the past and how it is perceived by civil societies on websites, blogs, and social media, the far right has succeeded in overcoming its marginality and in normalising its messages of intolerance on a continental scale.

Despite making headlines in the global media in August 2020, Belarus still remains one of the least-known countries in the west. Belarus had not existed as an independent political entity prior to 1991 and had hardly any sovereignty historically; this however does not mean that the Belarusians lack a tradition of statehood and their own political history. The primary purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief analysis of different and sometimes confronting concepts of Belarusian statehood, as well as the political symbols, from a long-term historical perspective, to understand the country's unilinear path towards sovereignty and independence. The results obtained in the present study could provide a better understanding of the ongoing political crisis, especially since the 2020 presidential election, and the challenges Belarus continues to face today.

Thousands of Roma were killed in Ukraine by the Nazis and auxiliary police on the spot. There are more than 50,000 Roma in today's Ukraine, represented by second and third generation decendants of the genocide survivors. The discussion on Roma identity cannot be isolated from the memory of the genocide, which makes the struggle over the past a reflexive landmark that mobilizes the Roma movement. About twenty Roma genocide memorials have been erected in Ukraine during last decade, and in 2016 the national memorial of the Roma genocide was opened in Babi Yar. However, scholars do not have a clear picture of memory narratives and memory practices of the Roma genocide in Ukraine. A comprehensive analysis of the contemporary situation is not possible without an examination of the history and memory of the Roma genocide before 1991.

The Great Terror in the Soviet Union 1937–38 was to a high degree accomplished on ethnic grounds. Citizens of German, Finnish and Polish and other descent became victims for the ‘national operations’ of the NKVD. In 1926 approximately 2,500 Swedes were residing in the Soviet Union. In April 1937 an NKVD-directive declared ‘to detect and remove from the USSR all foreign nationals, who in one way or another were suspected of espionage.’ Paradoxically the authorities tried to purge the country from ‘dangerous elements,’ but in the totalitarian communist system, returning home was still nearly impossible. The Embassy of Sweden in Moscow initiated a rescue operation, never before professionally studied. Hundreds of Swedish citizens in various regions of the country contacted the embassy in order to escape the threats from the NKVD. Many of them were from Karelia. Many were rescued, but in many cases the efforts failed. This unknown event gives a new perspective of Swedish diplomatic operations before World War II. But it also contributes to the wider issue of Western rescue operations in the USSR. Our paper is focused on the rescue operations of Sweden. How were they carried out? How did the Soviet concept of nationality affect the identification and misidentification of Swedes and Finns by the NKVD? Did the Embassy of Sweden in Moscow try to define ‘Swedish connection’ as broadly as possible? How important were the emotional reaction for the diplomats? The empirical results of this study open up for theoretical discussion on the relevance of moral and humanistic contents, as well as the principle of legal state in international conflicts and zones of insecurity. The source material is based on the collection of the Foreign Office discovered by the authors in the National Archives of Sweden, which contains various materials regarding the Swedish rescue operation.