ABSTRACT
The book about competing memories in European border towns is attached to three lively fields of research: borderland, urban, and memory studies. Immediate and complex relations exist between borders and towns, and the historic and contemporary proximity to neighbouring states and societies mark their culture and physical appearance. Towns often played a prominent role in the bordering process. They were knots, symbolic places, administrative centres, and points of concentration of wealth and culture, and they were seen as emblematic of entire regions. Pierre Nora’s famous concept “lieu de mémoire” gave rise to many studies on the field of memory studies connected with urban spaces. History has played a major role in creating the collective memories and grand narratives of nations. These narratives are made visible in places of public memories in town spaces. Often they are also places of nostalgia of present of previous inhabitants of the town. However, memories attached to some places and memory politics have been analysed in scientific works, mostly articles, from separate towns or single monuments. By comparing the memory politics practised in several borderland towns around Europe, the goal is to describe the phenomenon’s general and abstract level.
