Det omstridda arvet : Den kommunistiska erfarenheten i dansk och svensk historiekultur

Sammanfattning: This thesis investigates the dissension and dividing force present with regard to dealing with the communist experience in Sweden andDenmark. It studies the manifestations and causes of this dissension and compares the ways it has been dealt with in historical culture. 38in-depth interviews with history teachers and historical scholars, belonging to two generations, have been conducted. They have beenasked questions that belong to the most disputed ones in public debates, as well as in scholarship on Soviet history. The answers havethen been analysed by means of three paradigms in scholarship on Soviet history and by means of two historical cultures.An overall conclusion is that in Denmark there is more change and discontinuity in dealing with the communist experience. Perhapsmost clearly this can be seen in the ways the informants treat questions about ideology and morality. The Danish informants in a muchstronger way relate ideology to terror. They also firmly declare that behind this terror there are agents with intentions, and that it ispossible for historians to describe these agents as perpetrators with personal responsibility for their actions. The Swedish informants, onthe contrary, tend to remove ideology from the communist repression and find it difficult to answer the moral questions, often ending upwith contradictory explanations. For example, they can relativise and contextualise morality, explaining that questions about perpetratorsand their responsibility must be related to a certain historical context. However, when explaining Nazi crimes, they de-relativise and decontextualisemorality, which is thus made timeless, and they do not find any difficulties in stating Nazi agents as perpetrators, driven byevil intentions.These different patterns of explanation can be related to different historical cultures. In Denmark from the 1990s there has been a heatedcultural battle and debate about the Cold War and communism, where questions about ideology and morality have come to the fore.Just as was the case with Nazism after the Second World War, dealing with communism after the Cold War is about Danes, who areaccused of having taken sides with the enemy. In Sweden, on the contrary, as a conseqence of policy of neutrality and non-alignment,there has been a tradition of not having to take anyone’s side in conflicts. Moreover, there seems to be a widespread concept ofcommunism as a good idea. Probably due to this concept, the Swedish informants in this study are not inclined to describe communistsas perpetrators but depict them instead as victims.Although Sweden and Denmark seem to be very similar, this study shows that their historical cultures differ from each other in manyrespects. Furthermore, the different ways the Danish and Swedish informants explain communist repression suggest that the twoScandinavian countries, with respect to historical culture and dealing with communist experience, have taken two different paths.