The workshop will address the changing meaning of political capitals of East-Central Europe and their relation to political identification after the end of the Cold War division of Europe. It will consider Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Tbilisi, and Bratislava.

The workshop will ask: what is the changing relation between economic, cultural, and political functions of capitals in the region? If a capital city represents "the political" of a country, then how is "the political" specifically understood today? What issues or functions does it include and exclude? Does it consider itself a center, and if so, a center of and for what? At a time when the symbolic geography of Europe is being radically reconfigured, what is the significance of national capitals in Central Europe? What is the relation of these national capitals to other European capitals? Are there other capital cities, either in the past or present, that serve as a central symbolic/cultural referent?

program: John Borneman, Professor für Anthropologie, Cornell University und IFK Urban Fellow (sponsored by: Stadt Wien, Abt. f. Stadtentwicklung und Stadtplanung) / Lutz Musner, IFK, Wien

participants: Judit Bodnár, The State University of New Jersey Rutgers / Matti Bunzl, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign / Stefan Holcik, Archeologicke muzeum SNM, Bratislava / Konrad Köstlin, Universität Wien / Klara Löffler, Universität Wien / Péter Niedermüller, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin / Bela Rasky, Österreichisches Ost- und Südosteuropa-Institut, Außenstelle Budapest / George Tarkhan-Mouravi, ICGS Tbilisi / Bernhard Tschofen, Universität Wien / Gotthart Wunberg, IFK, Wien