Struggles with memory. Central Eastern Europe and Avishai Margalit’s concepts of decent society and ethics of memory

Abstract

The main goal of the paper is an identification and presentation of Margalit’s philosophical categories’ potential for their application in CEE socio-legal studies on collective memories and the constitutionalization of the political communities after 1989. Both “decent society” and the “ethics of memory” are an added value for the recent discussion on that problem. That is the reason why their comparison with the actual state of knowledge and the reality of societal collective memories’ petrification by several political factors is crucial. Looking for an answer to the question formulated in the article’s title will help in the identification of the fields which could be enriched by Margalit’s philosophy.