Saga - 2013, Side 53

markmiðum sínum um að höggva á tengslin við Rússland og tengj-
ast vestrænum ríkjum stofnanaböndum. Það kom þó aldrei til
greina að láta samvinnu Eista við Þjóðverja eða þátttöku þeirra í
gyðingaofsóknum í síðari heimsstyrjöldinni kollvarpa upp runa -
goðsögn Eistlands um andkommúníska þjóðernisbaráttu gegn sov-
ésku valdi.
Abstract
valur ing imundarson
THE MIKSON AFFAIR AND TROUBLED PASTS
The Politics of Memory, National Identities, and Paradigm Changes
This article explores how dominant ideologies during different time periods
reconfigured political and legal attitudes towards individual resistance to Soviet
rule and collaboration with the Germans during World War II. As a case study,
the so-called Mikson Affair is analyzed. It centered on charges—first put forward
by Estonian refugees in Sweden at the end of the war, then by the Soviets during
the Cold War, and, finally, by the Simon Wiesenthal Center following the break-
up of the Soviet Union—against an Estonian policeman, Evald Mikson, for killing
communists and Jews in 1941 during the last phase of the Russian occupation of
Estonia and the beginning of the German one. The article ties Mikson‘s personal
and political trajectories with national and transnational processes, such as
Estonia‘s independence struggle; Estonian collaboration with Nazi Germany; the
persecution of the Jews and the Holocaust; the ideological conflict of the Cold
War, and the end of Communism. Thus, the focus is on exploring the intersections
between individual representations based on experiences, on the one hand, and
ideological paradigm shifts, reconfigurations of power relations, and collective
memories, on the other. The purpose is to show how interpretations of war crimes
memories by various political elites—especially Estonian, Icelandic, and Jewish
but also Russian ones—were used, in the Cold War and during the post-Cold War
period, to influence, revise, and question national identities, notions of individ-
ual and collective guilt, foundational myths, and governmental behavior.
mikson-málið sem „fortíðarvandi“ 51
Saga vor 2013 NOTA_Saga haust 2004 - NOTA 8.5.2013 12:22 Page 51