By Zlatko Kramarić*|ARGUMENTUM
Debates on the public display of totalitarian symbols in post-communist societies often oscillate between moral sensitivity and the legal necessity of distinguishing historical responsibility from contemporary standards of freedom of expression. It is precisely at this intersection that the problem of interpreting the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) arises, particularly in the cases Vajnai v. Hungary (2008) and Fratanoló v. Hungary (2011). In the Croatian public sphere, ECtHR judgments are frequently read selectively, as an implicit rehabilitation of communist symbolism, while the fundamental logic of these decisions is overlooked: the Court protects freedom of expression, not the historical memory of totalitarian regimes.
The ECtHR’s rulings rest on two principles. First, the Court emphasises that certain symbols—in this case the red star—are semantically multivalent. Within the European cultural and political space they carry the traditions of the workers’ movement and anti-fascist resistance, but also the legacy of revolutionary violence and the repressive communist orders.¹ Second, the Court insists that freedom of expression includes the right to symbolic communication, even when such expression may be provocative or disturbing to parts of society.² Therefore, the state, the Court warns, cannot pre-emptively assume the role of interpreter of another person’s intent: displaying the red star does not automatically constitute the promotion of a totalitarian regime.³
What is crucial—and what is regularly omitted in domestic debates—is the fact that in none of these cases does the Court question the historical crimes committed under that symbol. The ECtHR is not concerned with rehabilitation, but with applying the proportionality test: whether restricting freedom of expression is necessary in a democratic society. The normative status of the symbol thus remains unchanged: the permissibility of its use does not imply a moral or historical alibi.
In this context, a simple but powerful analogy becomes relevant: the cross as a symbol of Christianity remains a legitimate sign of faith, yet the crimes committed under that symbol throughout history are neither forgiven nor justified.⁴ The symbolic, continuous value of the sign and the historical responsibility of those who abused it are two distinct and mutually non-negating concepts. The same reasoning applies to the red star: the fact that it may be displayed in public (because this is protected by the right to freedom of expression) in no way negates the criminal nature of the many regimes that employed it.⁵ And it is precisely this aspect that is unpalatable to Croatian “anti-fascists,” who refuse to acknowledge this dimension of the “red star” and all the derivative meanings that follow from it—such as the not-at-all “gentle” slogan SF/SN (“Death to fascism, freedom to the people”). I belong to that kind of people who shudder at the very thought that someone’s death could give birth to freedom!
It is important to emphasise that the contemporary European legal order insists on this differentiation: freedom of expression protects the individual who uses a symbol, but not the historical regimes that legitimised themselves through that symbol. Croatian interpretations of ECtHR rulings often overlook this key distinction and treat the protection of an individual right as a political-moral justification of historical communist practice. Such an interpretation is not only methodologically flawed, but also at odds with what the Court actually states.
It may therefore be said that ECtHR case law perhaps protects the symbol, but it certainly does not protect history—nor does it seek to reshape it. The crimes committed under the red star have been affirmed in historiography, legal scholarship, and the collective memory of East-European nations; ECtHR decisions do not enter this sphere. They merely prevent the symbolic expression of an individual from being subjected to state censorship where there is no clear and immediate risk of promoting totalitarianism.
In other words: a symbol may be permissible, but the crimes committed under it are by no means amnestied. This is precisely how the European standard should be read—one that simultaneously protects freedom of expression and maintains a clear stance on the historical responsibility of totalitarian regimes. Such a reading enables Croatia to avoid the pitfalls of ideological simplification while remaining faithful to both democratic tradition and historical truth.
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1. ECtHR, Vajnai v. Hungary, Judgment of 8 July 2008, §§ 52–54.
2. Ibid., § 47; see also Handyside v. UK, Judgment of 7 December 1976 — the classic formulation on “ideas that offend, shock or disturb.”
3. Fratanoló v. Hungary, Judgment of 3 November 2011, §§ 21–24.
4. General historiographical literature on the cross and institutional violence: MacCulloch, D., Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2010).
5. See: Snyder, T., Bloodlands (2010); Courtois, S. (ed.), The Black Book of Communism (1997).
*Zlatko Kramarić is a Croatian publicist, author, and diplomat, currently serving as Ambassador to Albania. Formerly a university professor and politician, he is known for his work in literature, cultural studies, and regional history.
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