Memory Politics and the Global History of Totalitarianism: Comparing Narratives of the Gulag and the Holocaust

Abstract

The twentieth century witnessed two of the most devastating systems of state repression and mass violence: the Nazi Holocaust and the Soviet Gulag. Both became central to debates about memory, trauma, and totalitarianism, yet their remembrance followed divergent political and moral trajectories. This paper examines how the Holocaust and the Gulag have been remembered, compared, and instrumentalized in global memory politics. By analyzing memorial practices, historical scholarship, and political discourse, the study highlights how collective memory of these atrocities has shaped understandings of justice, ideology, and human rights. It argues that while comparisons between the Gulag and the Holocaust reveal shared mechanisms of dehumanization and state terror, they also expose tensions between universal and particular narratives of suffering in the global history of totalitarianism.