The Politics of Memory Jews and Roma Commemorate Their Persecution

INTRODUCTION In The Ethnic Origins of Nations the British historian and sociologist Anthony Smith, a leading theoretician of nationalism, defines ethnic community as “a named human population possessing a myth of common descent, common historical memories, elements of shared culture, an association with particular territory and sense of solidarity.” Although Smith accepts the claim espoused by ‘modernist’ theoreticians of nationalism, such as Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson, that nationa..