Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2022, research on Central-Eastern Europe (CEE) has been in a process of re-evaluation. This workshop brought together scholars from a variety of disciplines – including sociology, history, as well as Slavic studies. It was aimed at mapping, understanding and contextualizing the most important shifts, both contemporary and past, in the relationships between countries and societies in CEE. The organizers’ goal was to develop a broader sociological and historical framework for understanding the region. Ranging from presentations of finalized large-scale projects to ongoing research at various stages of completion, the papers focused on diverse aspects of economic, political, and social dynamics and tensions in CEE – both past and present.

CLAUDIA FOLTYN (Augsburg) presented the results of a large-scale discourse analysis of recent press materials concerning shale gas extraction in Poland. BARTOSZ MATYJA (Warsaw) explored the impact of international trade and expanding consumption in socialist Poland between the 1950s and the 1970s on the way Polish elites perceived and reflected on the socialist economy. ANTON LIAVITSKI (St. Gallen) examined Belarussian conservatives’ critiques of nationalism and their visions of democracy, seeking to recontextualize “post-communism’s great divide” and apply the term to divisions within individual countries. Drawing on qualitative interviews conducted within an extensive study of Russian war mobilization, TOMASZ RAWSKI (Warsaw) discussed Russian war migrants’ visions of political change in Russia’s future. ALEXANDRA PULVERMACHER (Klagenfurt) reassessed the contested hypothesis of Narodnyy komissariat vnutrennikh del (NKVD) – Gestapo cooperation in the persecution of the Polish underground during World War II and its entanglements with memory politics. MAGDALENA GIBIEC (Wrocław) examined the radicalization of Polish-Ukrainian resentment in inter-war East Galicia through the lens of Roger Peterson’s emotion-based theory of ethnic violence. MARK KECK-SZAJBEL (Frankfurt (Oder)) raised the issue of recent Polish demands for war reparations from Germany, posing more general questions about the difficulty in measuring wartime losses from a contemporary perspective. Finally, VERONIKA WARZYCHA (Berlin) presented an exploratory case study of socio-spatial memory in the Polish-German border city of Guben/Gubin.

Five key themes emerged from both the presentations and the discussions.

(1) An emphasis on the multidimensionality and agency of borders

An attention to borders – both visible and invisible, tangible and intangible, crossed by migrants and reinforced by political efforts – and a reflection on their agency in shaping local contexts, constituted a recurring theme throughout the presentations. It was particularly pertinent for Gibiec, who demonstrated how the initial redrawing of borders after World War I contributed to the emergence of ethnic and hierarchical “borders” between Poles and Ukrainians within East Galicia, a region hitherto characterized by multiethnicity and multilingualism. Matyja, who examined the role that foreign trade played in shaping Polish elites’ perception of the socialist economy, showed that the border – far from isolating the economy – was an active and constitutive part of it, with information key to its development, hard currencies coming in, and high-quality products being exported. Further, as demonstrated by Foltyn, borders may be entangled with different politics of knowledge. Poland’s close proximity to Russia plays an important role in energy discourse formation and forces an alternative approach to energy transformation. Extraction of material resources, such as shale gas, was thus, at the outset, articulated primarily through frameworks constructed around values such as national sovereignty and economic independence. From another angle, Warzycha’s study of the city of Guben/Gubin focused on the (in)tangibility of the Polish-German border – the inhabitants are unwilling to remember it, and yet the two sides of the once unified city form different material landscapes and serve as continual reminders of the past.

(2) The key role of materiality

A focus on the aforementioned agency of borders was accompanied by a more general attention to materiality. Material constraints shaped the nature of Polish economic exchange with the West, since, as Matyja pointed out, Polish firms were encouraged to enter it through various incentives in the form of better product categorizations, which resulted in increased funding from the state. From a different angle, material spaces, such as schools, played a significant role in the escalation of Polish-Ukrainian resentment in inter-war Poland (Gibiec). Nowadays, the digital world provides new spaces of conflict, as noted by Pulvermacher – knowledge-producing platforms such as Wikipedia have played an important role within debates over contested memories. Keck-Szajbel’s presentation concerning Polish demands for reparations sparked a more general discussion on the form that reparations ought to take. Finally, an attention to materiality was key for the project presented by Warzycha, which utilizes the tools and concepts of dispositive analysis within the context of memory studies.

(3) The centrality of memory and memory politics for understanding tensions within the region

A further theme that reemerged was the importance of memory and memory politics. As Pulvermacher noted, hypotheses of NKVD-Gestapo collaboration are of symbolic significance to a particular way of remembering the Polish past through a martyrological lens. The reparations debate, as discussed by Keck-Szajbel, is similarly shaped by nationalism and visions of Polish suffering, as well as by wider dynamics of European politics. Finally, historical legacies can be subjects of non-memory, as exemplified by the Guben/Gubin area – while currently efforts are made to remember pre-war German Guben, the socialist Guben/Gubin remains far from general attention (Warzycha).

(4) The emergence and shifts of collective self-reflection

The presentations also explored various forms of collective self-reflection – from press materials emphasizing Poland’s need to emulate successful American models of shale-gas extraction, to diverging visions of democracy in the late Soviet era, and Russian migrants’ reflections on the country’s future. Gibiec showcased how such self-reflection may emerge by demonstrating how spiraling emotions within an ethnic conflict impacted the identity formation of both Poles and Ukrainians, especially in the context of a school system largely discriminatory towards the Ukrainian population. Matyja’s research further revealed the identity-making impact of foreign trade, with the elites asking themselves how “socialist identity” can be maintained while “capitalist” elements such as marketing are introduced. Finally, Rawski’s presentation raised the intriguing case of Russian war migrants’ perceptions of Russian politics and society – especially notable was the key role and agency ascribed to the elites, as well as the conviction that if only free elections are held, democratic change in Russia will be made possible.

(5) Uncertain visions of the future

Finally, the presentations also looked at various dimensions of uncertainty that the region now faces – from attempts by countries to ensure long-term energetic security, to the challenges that democracy must face in the aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine war. This uncertainty was made especially explicit in the reflections of Russian migrants on the future of Russia (Rawski). Those more optimistic about the possibility of change held that either defeat in the war or an exchange of elites in Russia are necessary preconditions to democratization. Finally, debates from the late Soviet era may bring important contributions to discussions of democracy within the current context of the Russia-Ukraine war, as shown by Liavitski. Belarussian conservatives articulated alternative views of democracy, envisioned as open to people of different ethnic backgrounds. The current decolonial push prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may overlook important factors such as tangled up language and cultural practices in post-Soviet countries – a forceful attempt to uproot them now may constitute a threat to democracy.

Overall, the workshop – supported by the German-Polish Science Foundation (DPWS/PNFN) – provided a platform for lively, fruitful, interdisciplinary exchange for researchers from the region. The papers worked to broaden understanding both of the historical and sociological shifts within Central-Eastern Europe, and their implications for the current situation.

Conference overview:

Tomasz Rawski (Warsaw) / Stephan Rindlisbacher (Frankfurt (Oder)): Welcome / Introduction

Panel I: Manyfold transformations
Chair: Tomasz Rawski (Warsaw)

Claudia Foltyn (Augsburg): Poland’s and Its Neighbours’ Quest for Energy Security. The Case Study of Fracking as an Exemplary Lesson in Value Divergence

Bartosz Matyja (Warsaw): Domesticating Foreign Trade. Economic Narratives and Societal Change in Poland, 1956–1976

Panel II: Challenged democracy
Chair: Bartosz Matyja (Warsaw)

Anton Liavitski (St. Gallen): Democracy and Its Discontents. Revisiting Post-Communism’s Great Divide

Tomasz Rawski (Warsaw): Visions of Future Russia among Russian War Migrants

Panel III: Problematic relations
Chair: Stephan Rindlisbacher (Frankfurt (Oder))

Alexandra Pulvermacher (Klagenfurt): German-Soviet Collaboration in the Persecution of the Polish Resistance, September 1939–June 1941

Magdalena Gibiec (Wrocław): Radicalisation to Violence. Understanding Polish-Ukrainian Relations in Interwar Period through the Prism of Resentment

Panel IV: Competing commemorations
Chair: Falk Flade (Frankfurt (Oder))

Mark Keck-Szajbel (Frankfurt (Oder)): Vergangenheitsbewältigung and the Never-Ending Debate on Reparations

Veronika Warzycha (Berlin): The Socio-Spatial Memory of the Polish-German Border

Concluding discussion