The historians of the majority of the European countries claim that the history of their nation is unique and exceptional. These claims serve as a basis for the formation of the historical image and politics of memory of the country at the national level. The visions of this “special way” are especially typical to the national historiographies and popular forms of memorialisation of the Central and Eastern European countries. They are based on the idea of exceptionality and belief that the history of a specific country is unique and incompatible with the historical narratives of the neighbouring countries. The authors of such ethno-centric narratives limit themselves only to the analysis of events within the boundaries of their country; cross-national approach to the same historical happenings is not applied. Such situation could be explained as a natural need of the post-communist countries to form their identities. Due to the newly restored/ acquired independencies, the need was especially urgent.
On the other hand, the situation is changing and new methodological approaches to novel cultural, memory, post-structural, post-colonial and other histories and spheres of research challenge the homogeneity of national narratives. Regional research of historical narratives and forms of memorialisation is especially topical in the transition from individual comparative analyses to large-scale comparative studies. Thus the prior aim of this conference is to enhance the development of the comparative studies of national narratives and the processes of memorialisation in the Central and Eastern European Region by analysing the national reflections of the past within the framework of the historical narratives of the whole region.
As an answer to the current topicalities, the chronological framework of the conference encompasses the post-soviet period, which signifies the erosion of the earlier narratives, the reconstruction of the old narratives and forms of memorialisation, and the formation of new historical narratives, memory forms and national identities.
We kindly invite researchers from the disciplines of Humanities and Social Sciences interested in the research of the Central and Eastern European Region to participate in the conference.
The conference covers these areas:
- Theoretical problems of the relation between memory and history
- The relationship between the academic historiography and popular historical narrative
- National heroes: between a legend and political order
- The problems of autochthonic approach and the development of pseudo-ethnogeneses in the national narratives
- The problem of intertwined and confronting representations of the past in the national narratives of the neighbouring countries
- Ideological and world-view vectors of national narratives
- Division of historical heritage
- The relationship of individual (cognitive) memory with the historical narratives
- The reflections of post-communist transformations in contemporary national narratives
- The influence of the membership in the European Union and the contemporary politics of Russia on the construction of the national narratives
Length of talks: 20 minutes
Conference language: English
All conference articles will be peer reviewed. Accepted articles will be published in a collective volume of scientific papers.
Researchers are kindly requested to fill in the participant’s form. Abstracts should be 300-500 words long, in English, and should be sent by 1 September 2013.