Addressing Painful Memories: Apologies as a New Practice in International Relations

Abstract

Collective memories of nations, for the most part, relate to events of either glory or victimhood. They depict the national self as triumphantly victorious or tragically defeated hero respectively – but nevertheless as hero. There are other kinds of memories, however, that undermine heroic narratives and the self-stylization of nations: painful memories of perpetration and guilt.