This is a timely book that provides a new analysis of the role that history and memory play in the processes of national identity formation in contemporary Poland, Ukraine, and Russia, three countries with interconnected and deeply contested histories. Milan Subotić, who is affiliated with the Institute for European Studies in Belgrade, introduces the concept of the politics of history, which he defines as the “(mis)use of history as an instrument for staying in office or gaining political power, for legitimizing rule, as well as for mobilizing the population” (12). This becomes evident, Subotić writes, when history is used for resolving “crises of communities’ self-understanding” by “formulating and imposing the essentialist understanding of collective (most frequently, national) identity” (13). What distinguishes this concept from the narrower term of the “politicization of history” is the scope of the policies that include, among other examples, legislation proscribing the interpretation of particular historical events, curriculum and educational program reforms, and commemorative practices. While this is a new term, the concept itself is not, as the author also shows when he connects it to Eric Hobsbawm's concept of “invented tradition” and other related scholarship in the interdisciplinary field of nationalism studies. Perhaps, it could also be linked with Timothy Snyder's concept of the “politics of eternity” in The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (New York, 2018), which may be read in tandem as both concepts encompass the memory of victimhood in national identity development.

In the first part of the book, Subotić reviews the life and work of the sociologist and historian Jan Tomasz Gross in the context of Holocaust memory and contemporary political divisions in Poland. The political parties on the right were highly critical of Gross's work, especially the book Neighbors: The Destruction of Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (Princeton University Press, 2001) that challenged the narrative of national victimization during the WWII by highlighting the responsibility of the Polish residents in this act of violence. At the same time, political leaders on the left welcomed the book as an opportunity to mobilize their supporters who embraced a different kind of understanding of history that acknowledged and included minorities in their formulation of contemporary Polish national identity.

The Ukrainian analysis, beginning with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, shows how the contested views of the memories of Holodomor, also referred to as the Great Famine in 1932–33, and Stepan Bandera, the controversial leader of the radical faction of the Organization of the Ukrainian Nationalists, were represented along with national liberation symbols, such as greetings and flags, in political campaigns and protests. In the case of Holodomor, the author discusses different interpretations ranging from the view that it was an act of genocide against the Ukrainian population to the view that it was a tragedy that occurred as a result of the harsh Soviet economic development program (121–28). In a similar way, the naming of Stepan Bandera as a “hero of Ukraine” by Viktor Yushchenko in 2010, after losing the elections, illustrated how the divisive effects of the “politics of history” extended beyond the national level to the international sphere when this act was criticized not only by Russia, Poland, and Israel, but also by the European Parliament (149).

In the last part, Subotić shows how the Russian commemoration of the October Revolution gradually lost the national prominence and was eventually replaced by the “new tradition” of the Unity Day under the regime of Vladimir Putin. The last chapter is dedicated to an analysis of the symbolism of the Georgian Ribbon and the Immortal Regiment commemorating WWII veterans on the Victory Day, and includes an analysis of the simultaneous commemoration in Serbia.

This book will be of interest to historians and social scientists who read Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian. If translated, it would attract the attention of scholars beyond the region interested in the use of the “politics of history” to strengthen and legitimize political power by promoting national unity. Subotić provides a new perspective that also includes comparisons with similar trends in Serbia, especially in the last chapter, in addition to updating the existing literature with examples from Poland, Ukraine, and Russia.