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Paper short abstract:

I draw on my own family history as a daughter and granddaughter of Baltic refugees of the Second World War to discuss the affective impact of memory on developing complex socio-cultural frameworks of who is (not) entitled to receive solidarity in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Paper long abstract:

The unprecedented solidarity with the large number of Ukrainian refugees across Europe in 2022 contrasts with the negative reception of the arrival of larger refugee groups from non-European countries since 2015. This suggests that the development of solidarity is confined to normative frames of interpretations, expectations, and values in societies. The war in Ukraine is situated in a European context that entangles multiple individual and collective memories, histories, and identities in a very complex way. Contemporary images and reports of the war can bring forth old, forgotten, or supressed memories that tap into Europe’s history of the Second World War and Cold War. Thus, the question of deservingness of solidarity in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine cannot be viewed isolated from wider European history and conflicting memory discourses. By drawing on my own family history, I discuss how intergenerational family memory of forced displacement and exile associated with the Second World War can be an affective but often neglected factor for understanding the development of solidarity with Ukrainian refugees in the present. Even though family stories are a legacy of the past, they serve the present and future. The stories of past generations contribute to the complexity of emerging ideological frameworks and practices of solidarity in Europe. By communicating socio-cultural norms and values and transmitting specific images and ideas about assigned perpetrator and victim roles and memories of past sufferings, family memory contributes to shape ideas of who is (not) entitled to receive solidarity.