History, Memory and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe

Lecture series organised by Profs. Alexander Etkind, Pieter M. Judson 

Established in 2016, this lecture series is a venue to explore the key issues in current debates on the history of central and eastern Europe. Without downplaying the region’s specificities, the series aims at bringing the history of the formerly socialist countries into the broader framework of European and global history. We invite guest speakers from various academic backgrounds and with diverse geographical foci to cover a wide range of themes and approaches that include political, social, economic, cultural or intellectual history. Providing a platform for debate and dialogue, the series also strives to unravel the significance of history in the public sphere.

During two terrifying days and nights in early September 1941, the lives of nearly two thousand men, women, and children were taken savagely by their neighbors in Kulen Vakuf, a small rural community straddling today’s border between northwest Bosnia and Croatia. In his prize-winning book, Violence as a Generative Force: Identity, Nationalism, and Memory in a Balkan Community (Cornell University Press, 2016), Max Bergholz tells the story of the sudden and perplexing descent of this once peaceful multiethnic community into extreme violence. 

Political Imaginaries and Imperial Collapse: plans for the territories of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union

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Speakers: Alexander Semyonov (National Research University Higher School of Economics in St Petersburg), Jeremy Smith (University of Eastern Finland and HEC Visiting Fellow) and Carolina de Stefano (University of Eastern Finland and Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa)

8 November 2018