"Marxist socialism is the deadliest ideology in history." This quote from the website of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) in Washington D.C., represents one of a growing number of controversial commemorative projects being pursued globally by representatives of conservatively-oriented foundations. The Tribute to Liberty memorial to the victims of communism > (TTL) too, currently under construction in Ottawa Canada, similarly commemorating victims from former communist regimes, employs a similar narrative arc. For example, a quote from the TTL website cites one of the Black Book of Communism's oft-cited and problematic claims that communism is responsible for 100 million lives lost and that it was, "the most colossal case of political carnage in history." Among the educational, research and commemorative goals of organizations spear-heading these efforts, is the assertion of the moral equivalence of the suffering experienced by victims of both fascist and communist regimes (what Katz has referred to as the 'double genocide' thesis (2016)). The Canadian memorial itself has generated considerable controversy for a number of reasons including its repudiation of communism in all its forms, partisan connections to the former Conservative-led government, a questionable approval process, the choice of sites in the nation's capital and its artistic merits (Dolgoy and Elżanowski 2018). Prominent members of the TTL board include representatives of diaspora communities eager not only for recognition and validation of their suffering under communism but, for some European supporters in particular, to efface the complicity of fascists in such countries as Lithuania, Latvia Ukraine and Croatia for war crimes during the Holocaust.
In this paper, I discuss the involvement of those diaspora Croats in Canada who remain preoccupied with the "crimes" of socialist Yugoslavia, reflected not only in fundraising support for the TTL memorial but also in promoting the victimhood narratives around which it is built. The links forged with other diaspora communities whose members also endured communist rule, reinforce the legitimacy of the historic grievances of diaspora Croats who self-identify as victims of communism, beyond the confines and (historical, cultural, political) particularities of community-based networks and rituals. The well documented rise in historical revisionism particularly in the states that emerged from the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia also has its supporters in diaspora communities. What role does expanding and deepening transnational connectivities (cultural, political and financial) play in lubricating or contesting memories, grievances, traumas or agendas in the name of collective remembrance.
References
Dolgoy, R.C. & J. Elżanowski 2018. "Working through the limits of multidirectional memory: Ottawa's Memorial to the Victims of Communism and National Holocaust Monument" Citizenship Studies 22#4:434-452
Katz, D. 2016. "Is Eastern European 'Double Genocide' Revisionism Reaching Museums?" Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust 30#3:191-220
