This introduction gives a brief account of the conceptual framework and the topics of the case studies, especially the connection between the psychological concept of trauma applied in the social sciences and the characteristics of the historical analysis of traumatic events or processes, the link between the patterns of consolidation and the regimes of memory, and the context of the chosen case studies of this focus.

The Netherlands is not known for its opposing regimes of memory. There are two exceptions to this rule: the history of the German Occupation during the Second World War and the Dutch participation in the Atlantic slave trade and slavery. The relatively low numbers of survivors of the Holocaust in the Netherlands, as well as the volume and the profitability of the Dutch slave trade and slavery, and the importance of slave resistance in abolishing slavery in the Dutch Caribbean have produced conflicting views, especially between professional historians and the descendants of slaves living in the Netherlands.

This contribution focuses on the spirit and the associated behaviours belonging to Belgian society. It deals with the past and, more specifically, with the legacy of the two world wars. In which way did Flemings and Francophones interact? What is the real nature of their relations described from the roots of the many issues and embedded consequences seen even today? Why is there a different vision of the past and how did the situation evolve with the federalization within the country?

Finnish political culture is known for its peacefulness and is characterized widely as consensual. This does not, however, mean that Finnish history and Finnish historiography are less burdened with conflicts and controversies than the general European pattern. At the same time, the rising populist discourse questions the fundaments of the consensus, and its nationalism poses a challenge to the mainstream political language. The analysis of the electoral programme of the populist True Finn party shows that this populist nationalism relies on the terminology of the mainstream political discourse to a remarkable extent, while it does not lay a heavy emphasis on memory politics.

This paper discusses the reasons why Italian young people today are not in a position to develop a memory of their own regarding the fascist regime of the recent past. Neither families, nor schools and media, could transmit experiences and provide learning opportunities that enables young men and women to construct an adequate image of that period of their historical heritage. Fascism has become the object of a process of collective removal.

Since October 2000, mass graves from the Civil War and Franco's dictatorship have become the most visible issue of the process of recovery of historical memory in Spain, as a metaphor for digging up the traumatic past. This paper offers a historical reading of this process, pointing out the importance of recovering the buried bodies to give them a worthy burial, to restore their memory, and to allow families to complete their mourning. Mass graves have been the subject of different interventions: they have been located, marked and dignified, in some cases opened and the human remains exhumed. The graves, previously symbols of silence and oblivion are now sites of mourning and memory. In addition, many forgotten memories have been recovered. The victims of the war and the dictatorship have returned to the heart of the public debate, although not without controversy.

This paper examines the changes of the memorials in Lviv's representative Liberty Avenue throughout the twentieth century as they reflect the changing regimes of memory of the successive political systems, from the Habsburg Empire through the Republic of Poland, the Soviet and German occupation, the Soviet Union to the independent Ukraine.

The paper offers a conceptual framework for interpreting the actions, rhetoric and decisions of the Hungarian communities living in neighbouring countries. Its main topic is covering how post-communist social transformations have been linked to the images these different communities have of the future, including expectations, principles and strategic goals.

The essay deals with the criterion and the distortion of making democratic political culture the basis of the democratic political community in the context of the traumatic historical experiences. The historical traumas of the communities may lead to a fluid or vacuum situation, a non-democratic consolidation, a fall back to personal power, even political hysteria if the assessment of the situation is wrong and bad aims are chosen; to a situation that could bring almost all the countries of Europe to the brink of disaster, and only those countries that could recall democratic political culture and education will be able to keep up with the rise of democratic crowd emotion. A comparative European research into the ways and means of processing collective traumas is not only an area that might shed new light on political phenomena, but a requirement of democratic functioning.

Along with those case studies he did on the Middle East, the Cyprus case study that is presented here was meant to have been part of István Bibó's Paralysis of International Institutions and the Remedies. A Study of Self-Determination, Concord among the Major Powers, and Political Arbitration (Hassock, Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1976), written between 1965 and 1974, but it was finally left out of the volume. István Bibó (1911–1979) was a seminal Hungarian democratic political thinker, international lawyer, and the last legitimate minister of the 1956 revolution, and, in this case study, he pointed out that there is no such entity as a Cypriot nation. Cyprus is the clashing and splitting area of the Greek and the Turkish nation-making processes. His detailed analysis is based upon this assumption. It has been translated by Péter Pásztor (Szentendre, Hungary).