HIRA&HPS.CESEE DIGITAL BOOK LAUNCH
Date: September 17, 2024, 6—7 pm (CET)
Place: Zoom meeting

Introduction by Denisa Nešťáková (Herder Institute)

Commentaries by Fanny Svégel (Eötvös Loránd University) and Elisa-Maria Hiemer (Herder Institute)

Moderation: Heidi-Hein Kircher (Herder Institute)

With a focus on reproductive policies in 20th-century Slovakia, which aimed at regulating the reproductive behavior of its citizens, this book sheds light on the long history of policing women’s bodies as an intrinsic means of controlling their lives. The history of family planning in 20th-century Slovakia offers a glimpse into past developments relating to abortion, birth control, sexuality and reproductive rights in East Central Europe, as well as the rest of Europe. Thus, it allows a broader understanding of the similarities and differences between the East and the West. By examining the tendencies toward more liberal and progressive reproductive policies in the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938/9), then the shift to a conservative view of the family and women during the wartime Slovak state (1939–1945) and the “sexual liberation” of the 1950s and early 1960s in socialist Czechoslovakia, this volume examines the impact of political and social changes on family planning in modern Slovak history. This work shows that irrespective of which regime ruled over men and women in Slovakia, they all endorsed reproductive growth, and an increase in the birth rate was supported, desired, required and sometimes enforced. The private decision-making of individuals in family planning thus became a matter of public interest, in which populism, traditionalism, conservatism, pronatalism and religion combined or clashed with eugenics and racism, as well as with science, public health and feminism. Sometimes these aspects of family planning operated in parallel and created stories of backlash, resistance and ruptures. In the midst of all this was the female body, which was obliged to serve accordingly.

Digital HIRA (Herder Institute Research Academy) Book Launch is an event series launched by the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, Institute of the Leibniz Association. We have developed the series to support a vivid academic exchange and discussion at a time when personal contacts remain restricted. The Digital HIRA Book Launch brings together alumni, current HIRA fellows, and interested colleagues offering the newest results of our research to the broader public.

HPS.CESEE is an online platform about the history of science in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Its aim is to facilitate the exchange of information among HPS scholars in the region stretching from Prague to Perm and from Tallinn to Tirana. You can find it on blogger (https://hpscesee.blogspot.com/), facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/hps.cesee/) and twitter (https://twitter.com/hpscesee).

Registration: hirev-hi@staff.uni-marburg.de

HIRA&HPS.CESEE DIGITAL BOOK LAUNCH
Date: September 23, 2024, 4—5 pm (CET)
Place: Zoom meeting

In Kooperation mit dem Netzwerk HPS.CESEE (History of Science in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe)

Introduction by Alexej Lochmatow (Erfurt University)

Commentaries by Maciej Górny (Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Science) and Izabela Wagner (Collegium Civitas)

Moderation: Heidi-Hein Kircher (Herder Institute)

This book explores the public debates among scholars that took place in Early Cold War Poland. The author challenges the traditional narrative on the ‘Sovietisation’ of Central and Eastern European countries and proposes to see this process not as a spread of Marxist ideology or a Soviet institutional model, but as an attempt to force scholars to rapidly adopt new academic and civic virtues.

This book argues that this project failed to succeed in Poland and shows how the struggle against these new virtues united both Marxist and non-Marxist scholars. While covering the arc of Polish scholarly debates, the author invites the reader to go beyond Poland and to use ‘virtues’ as a framework for reflections on both the foundations of scholarly practice and the ‘nature’ of authoritarian regimes with their ambition to teach scholars how to be ‘virtuous.’

Digital HIRA (Herder Institute Research Academy) Book Launch is an event series launched by the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, Institute of the Leibniz Association. We have developed the series to support a vivid academic exchange and discussion at a time when personal contacts remain restricted. The Digital HIRA Book Launch brings together alumni, current HIRA fellows, and interested colleagues offering the newest results of our research to the broader public.

HPS.CESEE is an online platform about the history of science in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Its aim is to facilitate the exchange of information among HPS scholars in the region stretching from Prague to Perm and from Tallinn to Tirana. You can find it on blogger (https://hpscesee.blogspot.com/), facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/hps.cesee/) and twitter (https://twitter.com/hpscesee).

Registration: hirev-hi@staff.uni-marburg.de