Euroacademia Conferences
Europe Inside-Out: Europe and Europeanness Exposed to Plural Observers (9th Edition)April 24 - 25, 2020
Identities and Identifications: Politicized Uses of Collective Identities (9th Edition)June 12 - 13, 2020
8th Forum of Critical Studies: Asking Big Questions AgainJanuary 24 - 25, 2020
Re-Inventing Eastern Europe (7th Edition)December 13 - 14, 2019
The European Union and the Politicization of Europe (8th Edition)October 25 - 26, 2019
Identities and Identifications: Politicized Uses of Collective Identities (8th Edition)June 28 - 29, 2019
The European Union and the Politicization of Europe (7th Edition)January 25 - 26, 2019- 7th Forum of Critical Studies: Asking Big Questions AgainNovember 23 - 24, 2018
Europe Inside-Out: Europe and Europeanness Exposed to Plural Observers (8th Edition)September 28 - 30, 2018- Identities and Identifications: Politicized Uses of Collective Identities (7th Edition)June 14 - 15, 2018
Papers
The Dispute Around the Soviet Monuments in Contemporary Poland
At the end of March, 2016, the then President of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance Łukasz Kamiński announced the launch of a nationwide project, which will remove Soviet monuments of Polish public places and transfer them to a special museum. It's about more than 500 monuments, which commemorate the soldiers of Red Army, who died during the firing Polish lands in 1944-45. To a large extent they were placed by the Red Army and were not the effect of spontaneous actions of the Poles. Łukasz Kamiński explained, that „[…] leaving the memorials is a consequence of not finished transformation with the beginning of the 1990s. It was a fatal mistake that for years gives the fuel used in propaganda and provocations against Poland […]”.European Politics of Memory and Legal Reinvention of History in CEE
After summarizing the arising EU law of memory, the paper will zoom into two CEE countries, which have been recently under critique of the dramatic decline in the standards of the rule of law, that is Hungary and Poland. The paper will compare various legal engagements with historical memory in these two countries from the fall of communism until the recent commemoration practices and restrictive legislative attempts to control collective remembrance. Finally, the paper will analyze whether these mnemonic practices in Hungary and Poland are compatible with European standards of freedom of (academic) expression, assembly, non-discrimination, dignity, and ultimately, the rule of law.Looking in the Past of New Divisions: Art as a Living Archive in Post-1989 Serbia and Russia
By focusing on the artistic output in Serbia and Russia after 1989, this paper provides a comparative analysis of how normative nationalist discourse created during and after the collapse of socialism in both nations has been challenged through art.this paper offers a new insight into social differentiation in both countries following the collapse of their respective socialist regimes. Focusing on creative strategies that have challenged normative discourses on national identity and national past provides a foundation for exploring how narratives of alterity have been created both from the inside and outside of both nations. In addition, this paper raises the question of what the rise of nationalist discourse, largely to the exclusion of any alternative, in post-1989 Serbia and Russia means today - an important topic, especially as the European Union struggles to keep this trend in check within its own borders.East, West, Home Is Best: The Evolution of Slovak Colour
Colour is a myth; it is a lyrical layer of history and thus deserves more scholarly attention within Slovak history. My paper examines the importance of the context-sensitive colour in Slovak painting when considering the artworks by key Slovak painters such as Martin Benka (1920s), Ľudovít Fulla and Mikuláš Galanda (1930s), Milan Laluha (1950s) and Jarmila Mitríková & Dávid Demjanovič from the present day.Cultural Resource of Diplomacy (Russian-Polish Experience)
We should not erect, with our own hands, a wall between our cultures and so, between our countries. People from the arts and culture field of different countries belong to a single community, a Single Territory of Arts. Art should not directly fall under the policy area, should not become an instrument of manipulation. But it does not negate the art’s involvement in urgent contemporary processes. Closed borders and cancelled projects just deepen misunderstanding between us, and narrow cultural horizons.The Role of Art in Cold War Diplomacy in Yugoslav – US Relations 1961-1966
During the 1960s, culture was often (sometimes unwittingly, other times intentionally) infused with the politics of the Cold War. This paper will highlight the specific role of former Yugoslavia in America’s cultural Cold War programme and Yugoslavia’s frontier position between East and West in geographical, ideological and socio-political terms. America’s foreign and cultural policies will be correlated with Yugoslavia’s government active roles and strategies and its art world in international cultural relations. The analysis will start with the year 1961, when Yugoslavia adopted a new strategic position of “nonalignment”.Applied Social Art History as a Method to Aid Cultural And Social Integration Of Communities
The paper will provide the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of Applied Social Art History as a method for social/cultural integration. It will also provide an outline for practical application. Results from the pilot project evaluation carried out by Art for Integration and Social Transformation LTD (art: IST), which concluded on December 1st, 2016, will bring forward the insights generated from applying an integration lens to art workshops, as well as presenting the projected next steps for this body of work. Whilst the case study of this paper is rooted in the United Kingdom, Applied Social Art History as a method and the integration precedence is not limited and can be implemented in Central and Eastern Europe as well.Politicization in Public Space in Bosnia-Herzegovina
This paper focuses on one public space that is simultaneously an NGO and a cafe, thus fusing the international and the local, built in a site destroyed during the war and reconstructed by youth activists to be an inclusive site of artistic development and active citizenship. In the context of national and cultural fragmentation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the appropriation of space in Mostar and the conversations that converge around this phenomenon illuminate how young people place themselves within the polarizing forces in their country.London – Labyrinth, Initiation or Trap for Eastern Europeans: Reflections in Bulgarian and Latvian Prose (A. Popov and V. Lācītis)
TGreat Britain with its welcoming immigration policies in the early 21st century was very expedient for Eastern Europeans and thus becoming one of the main destinations for seekers of a better life. London as one of the European meccas of multiculturalism rapidly obtained Eastern European features and today can be considered an important Eastern European city as well. Although the communities at the new location are shaped based on ethnic and linguistic properties, a common mentality from socialistic past creates a wider cultural group of Eastern Europeans.The Absent Presence Of Abandoned Industrial Spaces Of Belgrade: A Semiotic Study Through Photographic Imagery
The study focuses on the abandoned industrial spaces in Belgrade as the examples of modernities in transition. Mainly two study areas are chosen that have marked the development of industrialization starting from late 19th century on the confluence of two rivers (Sava and Danube). The discontinuity in urban development and degradation of initiated projects in Belgrade, throughout the 20th century, could be ascribed to turbulent social and historical processes, radical shifts in political course and ideological changes, which left behind a decaying fabric of built environment, empty industrial spaces with the absence of content, function and programme.
