The aim of this paper is to discuss the contribution of Ricœur’s hermeneutics to the analysis of various types of manipulation. The article uses especially Ricœur’s concept of memory and narrative identity and analyses ways in which our memory and forgetting are abused, in relation to narrative identity (blocked memory, manipulated memory, obligated memory). At the same time the study takes into account Ricœur’s ethical guidelines for using memory (just memory), which closely relates to institutions and political practice, and shows concrete ways of using Ricœur’s concept of the “work of memory”. The theoretical framework is then applied to examples from Czech history and current political practice, namely to the example of the traumatic expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after WWII, the reaction of the Czechoslovak communist regime to the publication of the dissident manifesto Charter 77 and the contemporary abusive narrative of migration as an existential and a political threat. To conclude, the study confronts examples from post-communist Eastern Europe with examples from the current situation in the West.