Abstract
This article investigates the influence of collective memories of violence on the foreign policies of small states, focusing on Austria and Greece as two ‘frontline states’ of the early Cold War in Europe. The article develops an analytical framework linking memory narratives to policy. Using qualitative discourse analysis, it shows how policy elites framed past violence either as heroic sacrifice or as national victimisation to conceptualise and legitimise diverging foreign policy strategies. The findings demonstrate that the selective remembrance of past violence shapes national role conceptions and strategic choices. They underscore memory’s role as a strategic resource for policy elites, offering new directions for scholarship on the ideational foundations of small state foreign policy.