The history of terrorism has been largely a history of perpetrators, their motives and actions. The history of their victims has always seemed to be of secondary importance. But terrorism is communication by violence, and its efficiency depends significantly on the selection and the treatment of the victims by the perpetrators, on the one hand, and the perception and acknowledgement of victimhood by the public, on the other. How does it affect our picture of the history of terrorism then, if the victims are moved centre stage? If the focus is put on their suffering, their agency, their helplessness, or on how they are acknowledged or exploited by society, politics and media? If the central role is taken into account which they play in terrorist propaganda as well as in the emotional response of the public? The contributions to this edition of the European History Yearbook will examine such questions in a broad range of historical case studies and methods, including visual history. Not least, they aim at historicizing the roles of survivors and relatives in the social process of coming to terms with terrorist violence, a question highly relevant up to the present day.
Content
Petra TerhoevenVictimhood and Acknowledgement: The Other Side of Terrorism
Anke HilbrennerOf Heroes and Villains – The Making of Terrorist Victims as Historical Perpetrators in Pre-Revolutionary Russia
Marie Breen-SmythSuffering, Victims and Survivors in the Northern Ireland Conflict: Definitions, Policies, and Politics.
Anna Cento BullReconciliation through Agonistic Engagement? Victims and Former Perpetrators in Dialogue in Italy Several Decades after Terrorism
Florian Jessensky and Martin Rupps“May the burden of your ordeal gradually fade from memory”: Dealings with Former Hostages of the Hijacked Lufthansa Aircraft ‘Landshut’
Charlotte KlonkIn Whose Name? Visualising Victims of Terror
Petra TerhoevenConclusions
Forum
Gregor FeindtMaking and Unmaking Socialist Modernities: Seven Interventions into the Writing of Contemporary History on Central and Eastern Europe
Tillmann LohseA Collapsing Migratory Regime? The Map of the Migration Period and its Iconology at the Beginning of the 21st Century