Regimes of Memory II. Types of Trauma Management in Central and Eastern Europe
Regimes of Memory II. Types of Trauma Management in Central and Eastern Europe
The region of Central and Eastern Europe is overburdened with history, centuries-old grudges, rival narratives, and ethnopolitical conflicts. From Poland and Baltic states, through Ukraine and Hungary, to the East and West Balkans, political cultures are dominated by various grievances, fears, and pursuits of amends as a consequence of unprocessed historical traumas. Competing regimes of memory manifest themselves in different interpretations of symbolic dates, places, and traditions. Undoubtedly, they are substantial parts of national and communal identities, but at the same time they preserve and in many cases fuel historical traumas, grievances, and past resentments. That vicious circle of commemorating history and fuelling historical grudges poses questions about the role that is played by collective memory in the processes of trauma management and reconciliation. Can we keep the memory of historical events alive without preserving historical grievances? What is required for reconciliation: the act of forgiving or the act of forgetting? The goal of the conference is to assess the various means by which communities and nations could and can overcome historical resentments. A selection of the conference papers will be published in the quarterly New Eastern Europe and Polish Political Science Review.
All correspondence was addressed to:
Dr Aleksandra Nowak
(nowak@acadeuro.wroclaw.pl)
Academia Europaea Knowledge Hub Wrocław
Rynek 13
50-101 Wrocław
tel/fax +48 71 770 20 26
mobile +48 506 388 101
or
Maciej Makulski
(maciej.makulski@rodm-wroclaw.pl)
Polish Regional Office on International Relations in Wrocław
Plac Biskupa Nankiera 17
50-140 Wrocław
tel +48 71 342 16 81
mobile +48 691 849 726
- Prof. Ivan Denes (Academia Europaea Member, István Bibó Center for Advanced Studies of the Social Sciences and Humanities, Budapest)
- Prof. Siegfried Huigen (Academia Europaea Member, University of Wrocław)
- Prof. Krzysztof Ruchniewicz (Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies, Wrocław)
- Dr Piotr Sula (Institute of Political Science, University of Wrocław)
- Dr Adam Cianciara (Regional Office on International Relations, Wrocław)
- Dr Aleksandra Nowak (Academia Europaea Knowledge Hub-Wrocław)
SEMINAR LANGUAGE: English.
FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS: The organisers provided accommodation and meals as well as reimbursed travel expenses (to a certain maximum1), conference fee, insurance costs, and the costs of publication2 of the refereed conference papers.
Academia Europaea, Polish Regional Office on International Relations in Wrocław, Willy Brandt Centre for German and European Studies, and the Institute of Political Science at the University of Wrocław invited young scholars (PhD candidates and postdocs) to take part in an interdisciplinary conference held in Wrocław (Poland) on October 9-10, 2014.
Context and rationale:
The region of Central and Eastern Europe is overburdened with history, centuries-old grudges, rival narratives, and ethnopolitical conflicts. From Poland and Baltic states, through Ukraine and Hungary, to the East and West Balkans, political cultures are dominated by various grievances, fears and pursuits of amends as a consequence of unprocessed historical traumas. Competing regimes of memory manifest themselves in different interpretations of symbolic dates, places, and traditions. Undoubtedly, they are substantial parts of national and communal identities, but at the same time they preserve and in many cases fuel historical traumas, grievances, and past resentments. That vicious circle of commemorating history and fuelling historical grudges poses questions about the role played by collective memory in the processes of trauma management and reconciliation. Can we keep the memory of historical events alive without preserving historical grievances? What is required for reconciliation: the act of forgiving or the act of forgetting? The goal of the conference was to assess the various means by which communities and nations could and can overcome historical resentments. A selection of the conference papers were published in the quarterly New Eastern Europe.
Interdisciplinary approach: Conference papers from the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Topics:
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- Specific regimes of memory in Central and Eastern Europe
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- Processes of trauma management and reconciliation in Central and Eastern Europe
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- Collective memory and its management
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- Conflict and reconciliation
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- Forgetting as a way of overcoming historical trauma
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- The role of language and narratives as transmitters of history
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- The management of archives and museums with regard to histories of trauma
APPLICATION: The registration was available at www.acadeuro.wroclaw.pl; submission of a 300-word proposal and a curriculum vitae with a list of publications was required by May 4, 2014. All applicants were notified about the selection of participants before May 16, 2014.
SECOND REQUIREMENT: Selected candidates were asked to provide a 3,000 to 5,000-word paper by September 10, 2014. The papers, which had not been previously published, were made available online. All workshop participants were asked to read these submissions prior to the conference. The participants who did not meet the submission deadline were not able to attend the conference.
TARGET GROUP: early career postdoctoral researchers and PhD candidates.
Registration of the participants
Welcome, Introduction (Rector of the University of Wrocław , President/Board Member of the Academia Europaea, Iván Zoltán Dénes
Iván Zoltán Dénes, Competing Regimes of Memory. A Case Study
Dubravko Lovrenović, Bosnia and Herzegovina as the Stage of Three Parallel and Conflicting Historical Memories
Coffee break
Éva Kovács, Marketing the “Fever of History” in Hungary (1990-2014)
Tamás Sajó, Breslau – Bresloy – Wrocław (and a Bit of Lwów). Three Memories of One City
Antonio Bernat Vistarini, Memory of the Call: Past and Present of the Xuetes of Palma de Mallorca
Discussion
Lunch
Session 1, Memory-Buildings. Chair: Tamás Sajó
- 02:30 – 02:50 pm Katalin Deme, Public Encounters with World War II and the Holocaust in Post-Socialist Central-Eastern Europe within the State and the Civic Sector
- 02:50 – 03:10 pm Łucja Piekarska-Duraj, “Make it Wow!, Make it Interactive and Don’t Forget to Include the Human Dimension”. Narrative Strategies in Museum Exhibition Management
- 03:10 – 03:30 pm Stsiapan Stureika, Overcoming of Soviet Regimes of Memory in Belarusian Local History Museums: the Case of Ašmiany
Coffee break
Session 2, Symbolic Space and Time and Private History. Chair: Antonio Bernat Vistarini
- 04:00 – 04:20 pm Bogdan Trifunović, Memory and Narrative of “Old Serbia”
- 04:20 – 04:40 pm Kinga Anna Gajda & Monika Eriksen, Building a Future through the Past: National Identity Formation in Post-Independent Kosovo
- 04:40 – 05:00 pm Grace Pundyk, Invisible Words: the Semaphore of Skin
Discussion
Balázs Trencsényi, The Memory of Collective Traumas and the Collapse of Post-Transition Liberal Consensus Politics in East Central Europe
Session 3, Constructing Memory of Soviet Lithuania. Chair: Iván Zoltán Dénes
- 10:00 – 10:20 am Monika Frėjutė-Rakauskienė, Identity, Memory and Politics: The Role of Collective Memory in Identity Building of Polish Community in Southeastern Lithuania
- 10:20 – 10:40 am Mingailė Jurkutė, Soviet Manipulation of the Memory of the Lithuanian Guerrilla War
- 10:40 – 11:00 am Gražina Sviderskytė, Politics, Ideology, and Traumatic Memory behind the Myth of Two Iconic Lithuanian Heroes – the Transatlantic Lithuanian-American Pilots Darius and Girenas
- 11:00 – 11:20 am Denise Thorpe, Lithuanian Vėlinės Cemeteries as Liminal Spaces of Memory
Coffee break
Session 4, From Competing Victimology to Attempting the Reconciliation. Chair: Éva Kovács
- 11:50 am – 12:10 pm Lars Breuer, Vernacular Memory in Germany and Poland
- 12:10 – 12:30 pm Estelle Bunout, The Impossible Reconciliations? The (Non) Discussions on the Eastern Territories in Poland and Germany after WWII (1947-1972)
Discussion
Lunch
Session 5, Discourse and Politics. Chair: Balázs Trencsényi
- 02:30 – 02:50 pm Alina Hogea, The Unstable Boundaries of Communism: Discourse and Politics in Post-Communist Romania
- 02:50 – 03:10 pm Catalin Parfene, Football, Writing, and Politics in the Memory of an Ethnic Hungarian in Romania
- 03:10 – 03:30 pm Sarolta Deczki, Untold Stories: Secret Agents and Informers in Hungarian Society
- 03:30 – 04:00 pm Coffee break
Lajos Pálfalvi, A Hungarian City in Viktor Horváth’s Turkish Novel
Discussion
Iván Zoltán Dénes: Conclusion
Dinner for the participants of the Seminar