The Institute of History and Biography at the Open University in Hagen, as the German representative of the „International Oral History Association” cordially invites in collaboration of the Stiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur and the Bundeszentrale fuer politische Bildung to this conference on the transformation process and its subjective interpretation in Central and Eastern Europe. Central issues will be: individual and collective memory concerning the time before, during and after the transformation process, biographical and family-related experience of change in the context of transformation of the political system and subjective responsives to the “new era”. The main focus will be on the “Ungleichzeitigkeit” of the development of political structures on the one hand and personal orientation on the other. Aim of the conference is to compare the transformation processes of the different countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

Thursday May 23rd 2002
16:00 Welcome speeches and introduction
by Bernd Faulenbach (Vice Chairman of the Stiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur) and Thomas Krüger (President of the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung)

Keynote speaker: Joachim Gauck

Introductory lecture by Alexander von Plato (Institute of History and Biography of the University of Hagen): Life Stories and System Change

Discussion

19:00 Reception provided by the Stiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur

Friday May 24th 2002

9:00 Surveys - a new beginning and the heritage of the recent past

Bernd Bonwetsch (Germany, Bochum): The republics of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991: between shaping their future and choosing their past

Reinhold Vetter (Hungary, Budapest and Germany, Düsseldorf): From Soviet equalisation to European variety - Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians on their way into the 21st century

Helmut Fehr (Germany, Berlin): Beyond memory? Comparative issues on dealing with the communist past in Poland, the Czech Republic and (East-)Germany

11:15 - 11:30 Coffee break

Svetozar Stojanovic (Serbia, Belgrad): Basic questions about the destruction of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and its aftermath

Mariana Hausleitner (Germany, Berlin): Dealing with stalinism in Rumania and the Republic of Moldavia

13:00 Lunch

14:00 Panels - Part One (16:30-16:45 Coffee break)

Panel I: (Life-) Histories

Moderation: Ronald Hirschfeld (Germany, Berlin)

Matthew Gorton (UK, Newcastle Upon Tyne): Experiences of decollectivisation: evidence from Ukraine, Moldova and the Baltic States

Ene Kõresaar (Estonia, Tartu): Interpretation of the biographical past as a project of national future: relationship between state and individual in the biographies of elderly Estonians in the nineties

László Kûrti (Hungary, Miskolc): Remembering the Commies: Soviets, party secretaries, and family relations

Snjezana Susnjara (Hungary, Budapest): Divided representation of World War II (1941-1945) and the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995): the case of Lašva Valley in Bosnia

Panel II: Old and New Elites

Moderation: Bernd Faulenbach (Germany, Bochum)

Iliyana Atanasova (Bulgaria, Sofia): The Bulgarian communist elite faced by the challenges of the changes (comparing two generations)

Florian Banu (Rumania, Bukarest): The Romanian post-communist society and the spectre of the Securitate (the former political police of the regime)

Rauf Karagezov (Azerbaijan, Baku): The Soviet epoch: voices from the past

Lev Lurie (Russia, St. Petersburg): Region as sample. Interviewing inhabitants of Leningradskaia oblast about their post-Soviet experience

Panel III: Remembering and Commemorating

Moderation: Annette Leo (Germany, Berlin)

Terje Anepaio (Estonia, Tartu): Shared and erased past: the obliteration of tragic experience in the social memory of Estonians

Ana Devic (at present Germany, Bonn): Identity metamorphoses in the ex-Yugoslav space: memory and amnesia of ethnicity and discontent

Petra Morawe (Germany, Berlin): “Managing imprisonment“. Former political prisoners of the GDR intelligence service Staatssicherheit after the fall of the wall

Jörg Morré (Germany, Bautzen): Bautzen in the Ural

Panel IV: Changes in Everyday Life

Moderation: Sabine Roß (Germany, Berlin)

Irina Sedakova (Russia, Moscow): The past is present - forever? The language we are surrounded by in post-Soviet Russia

Zagorka Golubovic (Serbia, Belgrade): Politics and everyday life in a country of transition

Diana Ivanova (Bulgaria/ Czech Republic): Who were we in the year One? The self-images of the Bulgarians

Olga Kalacheva (Russia, St. Petersburg): Transformation and celebrations. Old and new bank-holidays in post Soviet Russia

Panel V: Biographical and political turning points

Moderation: Barbara Stelzl-Marx (Austria, Graz)

Zaira Jagudina (Sweden, Goeteborg): The life stories of the human rights’ activists and construction of the global/local public spaces in post-Soviet Russia: past and present in the activists’ self-images

?arina Korostelina (Ukraine, Simferopol): Identity transformation in Ukraine: dealing with the past and clarifying in the present

Iouri Kostiachov (Russia, Kaliningrad): The problem of perception and the relationship of the German cultural heritage in the Russian-speaking population on the territory of the former Eastern Prussia

Andreas Langenohl (Germany, Giessen): Different meanings, same structures? Changes in public and private patterns of interpretation in post-Soviet Russia

18:30 Buffet

20:30 “Underground, Bunker and Cold War - an Excursion to the Berlin Underworld” Meeting at 19:45 at the entrance of the conference site

Saturday May 25th 2002

9:00 Panels - Part Two (11:00 – 11:10 Coffee break)

Panel I: (Life-) Histories

Barbara Stelzl-Marx (Austria, Graz): Black, white and grey shades of the past. Dealing with the status of Soviet ex-POWs in the (former) USS

Viktor Susak (Ukraine, L’viv): Taming of rebells, soothing of obedients: state manipulations and historical memory in the post-Soviet Ukraine

Tatiana Timofeewa (Russia, Moscow): The Gorbatschew era: views of three generations

Svetlana Tschervonnaia (Russia, Moscow): Between the ”non-overcoming” past and the vague future: the problem of incomplete rehabilitation of oppressed people (Crimea and Caucasus)

Panel II: Old and New Elites

Stephanie Ruecker (Germany, Muenster): Religion and national identity in Bosnia-Herzegowina 1945-1995 – first steps of an oral history project

Jerzy Holzer (Poland, Warsaw): How participants and activists remember history: memories of the polish communists of 1980-1989

Daniela Koleva (Bulgaria, Sofia): The ”normal biography”: probing into a “biocratic” culture

Miroslav Vanek (Czech Republic, Prague): Birth of new elites. Phenomenon of the so-called „stolen revolution“ (an oral history project)

Panel III: Remembering and Commemorating

Alice von Plato (Germany, Hannover): “[...] how marxism has become vivid reality in Germany“ – the commemorating functions of the Karl-Marx-monument in Chemnitz

Irina Scherbakowa(Russia, Moscow): Does the younger generation in Russia only choose Pepsi? How they deal with history

Smaranda Vultur (Rumania, Timisoara): How the traumatic experience in communist past life is told

Elena Campbell (Russia, St. Petersburg): The Siege in the Lives and Memories of Leningradians

Panel IV: Changes in Everyday Life

Andrea Peto (Hungary, Budapest): Conservative and extreme rightist women in contemporary Hungary

Maruta Pranka (Latvia, Riga): Looking to the present through the past

Judit Balázs (Hungary, Budapest): Organized crime in Hungary

Walter Sperling (Germany, Bielefeld): Advertisment as medium of reflection and memory in Russia

Panel V: Biographical and political turning points

Serguei Oushakine (Russia, Barnaul): The state of post-Soviet aphasia: symbolical development in contemporary Russia

Victoria Semenova (Russia, Moscow): Childhood memories of the past and social experience of the present

Máté Szabó (Hungary, Budapest): Policing demonstrations during the transformation viewed by police officers in their testimonies

Galia Valtchinova (Bulgaria, Sofia/ France, Besançon): Destroying one's life, building one's life. Historical event(s) in the life histories at the Bulgarian-Serbian border

13:00 Lunch

14:30 Final Discussion „With old habits into new times?”

Moderation: Alexander von Plato

Jan K. Coetzee (Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa)
Bernd Faulenbach (Stiftung Aufarbeitung, Berlin, Germany)
Daniela Koleva (University of Sofia, Bulgaria)
Laurent McFalls (Université de Montréal, Canada)
Ulrike Poppe (Protestant Academy of Berlin, Germany)
Arsenij Roginskij (Association “Memorial”, Moscow, Russia)
Wolf Schmidt (Eustory-Project, Koerber-Foundation, Hamburg, Germany)
Laszlo Varga (Budapest Archive, Hungary)

Languages of the conference: English and German We welcome participants who would like to attend and would ask them to register using either of the email addresses of the Open University in Hagen given below. Further information about the conference will be available from mid-April on the homepage of the Institute for History and Biography at the FernUniversität Hagen (see below).

Organizers: