Petra Hudek, PhD

Researcher, Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia

Fellow, Vilnius University, Lithuania

I am a researcher at the Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences, and a postdoctoral fellow at Vilnius University. My doctoral research compared the post-1989 fate of Soviet army monuments in Bulgaria, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, published as a monograph (VEDA, 2026). During a 2022-2023 fellowship at the Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, I led a project on iconoclasm in Czechoslovak public space after 1989. My current postdoctoral project at Vilnius University examines post-communist monument management and musealization of socialist-era heritage in museum-parks. I am principal investigator of a nationally funded Slovak research project on the instrumentalization of history in Slovak public space in the 20th century, and I co-led a TANDEM project on visual representations of WWII commemoration and memory politics in Central European museums. My work draws on concepts of dissonant heritage and mnemonic actors and regimes.

Statement of interest:

My research focuses on the post-1989 fate of socialist-era monuments and memory sites across Soviet and Central European contexts, with a recent expansion to the Baltic states. During my fellowship, I am extending this comparative framework to the former Yugoslav space, with a primary focus on Slovenia. Alongside research at the National Archives and local library collections in Ljubljana, the fellowship provides expert grounding in the political history of socialist Yugoslavia, as well as opportunities for collaboration with the Institute’s researchers and fellow scholars. The main output of my stay will be a comparative article on the post-1989 trajectory of these monuments in Slovenia and the wider region

Selected Publications:

• HUDEK, Petra. Pamätníky sovietskej armády po roku 1989: od symbolu oslobodenia k spornému dedičstvu [Soviet Army Memorials in (former) Czechoslovakia after 1989: From a Symbol of Liberation to a Contested Heritage]. Bratislava: VEDA, Historický ústav SAV, v. v. i., 2026.
• HUDEK Petra, Colourful Transformations of Soviet War Memorials in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, in: Kunsttexte.de, no. 1, 2024, section Ostblick, thematic issue: War on Monuments: Documenting the Debates over Russian and Soviet Heritage in Eastern and Central Europe, ed. by Kristina Jõekalda, p. 1-16.
• HUDEK Petra, Soviet War Memorial in Czechoslovak Territory. Glorified Remembrance after 1945 and the Controversial Historical Heritage after 1989, In: ADAMOPOULOU Areti (eds.) Monuments for World War II: Memory and Oblivion in the Balkans and Central-East Europe, University of Ioannina / Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation, 2024, p. 220-238.
• HUDEK Petra, The Legislative Framework for the Protection of Communist-era Monuments after 1989 in Czechoslovakia, In: Horonziak Sonia – Kaim Marcin, Mnemonic Governance. Politics of History, Transitional Justice and the Law, Berlin, Germany: Peter Lang Verlag, 2023, p. 131-146.
• HUDEK Petra, Kam zmizli sochy Lenina a Gottwalda? Premena československého verejného priestoru po roku 1989 [Where did the Statues of Lenin and Gottwald Disappear to? The Reshaping of Czechoslovak Public Space after 1989], In: Historický časopis, 2023, 71, 1, p. 115–145.