Literary Pax Sovietica, University of Sheffield, UK May 16-18, 2014

Literary Pax Sovietica

Late Stalinism in Eastern Literatures

International Conference

University of Sheffield, UK

May 16-18, 2014

The relationship between Literature and ideology in the communist Eastern Bloc after WWII represents a very important field of research that can contribute significantly to a wider understanding of the foundations of the new political and social order in post-World War II Eastern Europe. Although there have been comparative studies of the Cold War period by scholars, historians and literary critics, studies that were encouraged by the changes that occurred in the 1990s,  we are still lacking in in-depth comparative study related to the process of the institutionalization of literature and socialist realism in Eastern European countries. Therefore, 23 years after the collapse of the communist regimes in Europe there are still many issues concerning the relationship between literature and politics, between literature and state ideology issues which need to be deeply investigated by scholars whose academic interest is the East and South-East European Studies.

The establishment of the communist regime and the establishment of the method of Socialist Realism during the first post-War decade in the Eastern Bloc were the main focus of Literary Pax Sovietica: Late Stalinism and East European Literatures, an international conference organized by the Department of Slavonic Studies at the University of Sheffield on May 16-18, 2014. This conference brought together scholars from Europe and the USA whose field of expertise is literature and history of Eastern Europe and the national cultures of these countries during the communist regime.

Professors Evgeny Dobrenko and Natalia Skradol were the organizers of this noteworthy and insightful academic event. This conference was successful not only in accomplishing its goals but also in presenting an example of how can we tackle issues related to literature and communism in Eastern Europe in the present ever-changing context.

The introduction to the conference in day 1 was delivered by Neil Bermel and Evgeny Dobrenko from the University of Sheffield. The conference was organized in six panels. The first panel focused on the concept and application of soft power, brutal force and the significance of words. Scholars from the University of Texas, Arlington - Dr. Patryk Babiracki, from the University of Sheffield - Dr. Natalia Skradol, from the University of Zagreb - Ivana Peruško and from the New University of Bulgaria – Plamen  Doinov respectively gave the following presentations: “Soft power and Eastern Europe 1945-1956; “Socialist realism in the Soviet zone: concept and practice”; “Croatian ‘No’ to socialist realism: From Miroslav Krleža's ‘Dialectical Antibarbarus’ to ‘On Cultural Freedom’”; “Writers’ self-criticism: The Soviet model and the Bulgarian experience, 1946–1962”.

The second panel focussed on World Literature in the Eastern Bloc. Professor Katerina Clark (Yale University, USA) presented on ‘World Literature’: Standard Bearer of Soviet Culture in the 1930s and Casualty in the 1940s and cosmopolitanism. Vladislav Zubok from London School of Economics, UK presented on VOKS - Topic TBC. Rossen Djagalov from Koç University in Turkey presented a paper whose focus was Literary Polpredy and the Constitution of ‘The Literature of People’s Democracies’. This session closed with Tatiana Volokitina, from the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Russia, who offered in her presentation the results of the research that she had conducted in the Russian archives about Writers and Political Regimes in Eastern Europe.

The first day of the conference ended with the keynote speaker Galin Tihanov from Queen Mary University of London in UK who presented “The Post-Romantic Syndrome: Intellectual Adventures in Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe, 1917-1989”.

The third panel of the conference took place during day 2 and its main topic was: The Three C’s: Criticism, Censorship and Celebrations. This panel offered a wide perspective on the literatures in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and East Germany. Pavel Janáćek (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Czech Literature, The Czech Republic) presented the paper: “From Literature Censored by Poets to Literature Censored by the Party: Evolution of the Stalinist Censorial System within the Czech Literary Culture of 1945-1955”. Tomáš Glanc (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany) spoke on “Two Kinds of Czechoslovakian Mayakovsky. Death Celebration, 1950”.

Imre József Balázs from Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania presented a paper on the Impact of the Mihai Eminescu school of literature and literary criticism on the literatures of Romania, 1950-1955.

            The last speaker of the session was Tamás Scheibner from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary who presented the paper: “Competing Sovietisations: Book publishing and censorship in post-WWII Hungary”.

The topic of the fourth panel was: “Formative Divisions”.

The first speaker in this session was Benjamin Robinson (Indiana University, USA) whose paper was “Representing Opportunity: Between Behaviour and Leadership in the Early GDR”.

            Following this presentation and elaborating further on East Germany’s context were two papers: the one presented by Helen Fehervary (Ohio State University, USA), “Competing Visions: East German Writers and Intellectuals' Efforts to Create a Socialist Culture under Soviet/GDR Governance and in the Cold War Context of a Divided Nation” and the paper presented by Anne Hartmann from Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany: “The Cultural Renewal in Eastern Germany: Mission Impossible for Soviet Cultural Officers and German Antifascists?”

The last speaker of the session was Carl Tighe from the University of Derby, UK who presented the paper: “Number Crunching the Engineers of Human Souls: Polish Writers in Figures.”

The fifth panel which concluded the second day of the conference focused on another important issue of the Literatures in the Eastern Bloc: Establishing the Literary Establishment. The scholars presenting in this panel where Bavjola Shatro (Aleksandër Moisiu University, Albania) who presented on Albanian Literature during the Establishment of the Communist Regime: State, Ideology, Literary Tradition and the New Literature.

            Melinda Kalmár – independent Researcher from Hungary – presented the paper: “Literature and Politics in Hungary, 1945-1956.”

            Zoran Milutinović (University College London, UK) presented a paper which focused on Socialist Realism in Yugoslavia, 1944-1952. This panel was concluded by Katarzyna Śliwińska’s paper (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland): “The Institutionalization of a Doctrine: Socialist Realism in Poland.”

The sixth panel of the conference, which was also the last session, took place during the third day of the conference and focussed on the topic Canons after cannons. The contributions of the scholars who presented in this session are the following:

            Alexander Kiossev from Sofia University, Bulgaria, whose paper focused on Stalinism and the Canon, The Bulgarian Case;

            Andrada Fătu-Tutoveanu from Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, presented the paper: “Controlling Culture, Redesigning the Canon: The Post-War ‘Colonisation’ of the Romanian Literature”.

            Wojciech Tomasik (Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland) who spoke on Socialist Literatures in the Polish Canon, 1945-1955; and Nenad Ivić (University of Zagreb, Croatia) whose paper was entitled: “Will Freedom Sing as Beautifully as Captives Sang about It?”: Reshaping the Croatian Canon, 1945-1955.

After the final session of the conference an iconic movie of the Socialist realist cinema - a blockbuster of the communist propaganda at the time: Conspiracy of Doomed (1950) by Mikhail Kalatozov was screened. The film was preceded by an introduction delivered by professor Evgeny Dobrenko and was followed by discussion and conclusions.

Besides the academic opportunities, the Literary Pax Sovietica conference also enabled the participants to socialize during the meals and the activities that took place during the conference. The participants were also able to visit the remarkable city of Sheffield and the beautiful premises of the University of Sheffield, a university which is well-known for his outstanding academic performance and also for its impressive architecture and history.

This invitation-only conference offered the participants an exceptional opportunity to hear the valuable contributions of scholars from several former communist countries in Europe and from the USA and to participate in very fruitful discussions. It also outlined a feasible and useful path for future discussion in a field of studies, which is open to further investigation and research and whose implications are constantly present in European academy and society.
Bavjola Shatro

Balkan and South Slavic Conference Report

The 19th Biennial Balkan and South Slavic Conference in Linguistics, Literature, and Folklore was held at the University of Chicago April 25-27 2014.  The meeting was a rousing success.  Some 80 participants were in attendance, from a dozen countries (including China and Japan as well as European and North American universities).  As usual, the presentations addressed a wide variety of issues in many Balkan and South Slavic languages and cultures: the list this year included Albanian, Aromanian, Arvanitic, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Greek, Macedonian, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Rom, Serbian, and Slovenian, plus a large number of comparative or cross-Balkan papers dealing with more than one language.  The full program is available at the conference web site.

The conference was topped off by a buffet dinner and dance party, with local Macedonian musicians, at which organizer Victor Friedman was honored by a series of toasts, each in a different language.

Upcoming Conference in Balkan Studies at the University of Sofia

The Faculty of Slavic Studies at the St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia is celebrating the twentieth anniversary of its program in Balkan Studies with a conference entitled Balkan Languages, Literatures and Cultures: Divergence and Convergence.  The conference will take place on 30-31 May 2014. The preliminary program features 119 papers in English, French, German, Russian and Bulgarian by scholars from Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Kosovo, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Sweden, Turkey and the US. The papers address issues within the broad areas of linguistic structure and the lexicon, codification of the standard languages, language contact, etymology, onomastics and phraseology, ethnolinguistics, comparative literary studies, literature and society, ethnology, cultural history, identity and religion, political studies, the fine arts, music and folk dance.

Good luck to the organizers of this conference and to the program in Balkan Studies at the St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia.

Call for Papers for the Conference of the Society for Romanian Studies (SRS), Bucharest, 17- 19 June 2015

The SRS is an international inter-disciplinary academic organization that promotes professional study, criticism, and research on all aspects of Romanian culture and civilization, particularly concerning the countries of Romania and Moldova. 

For information about SRS visit www.society4romanianstudies.org. 

The 2015 SRS conference will be hosted by the Faculty of Political Science, the University of Bucharest. We thank them for their support.

Linking Past, Present and Future: The 25th Anniversary of Regime Change in Romania and Moldova (1989/1991) 

Anniversaries represent opportunities to reflect on past events, re-assess their impact on the present, and draw lessons for the future. Together with other 20th century historical events – including World War I, World War II, and the communist take-over – the overthrow of the communist regime represented a watershed event for Romania and Moldova, the most recent great transformation it is seen as having led to the end of the communist dictatorship, democratization of the political system, the introduction of market economy, cultural liberalization, the opening of borders, and a re-alignment with the West. At the same time, given Romania’s and Moldova’s persistent problems with political instability, pervasive corruption, slow economic growth, populism, and nationalism, the significance of the 1989/1991 regime change and its outcomes remains a source of contestation. The aim of this conference is to take a fresh look at the transformative events of a quarter century ago. We wish to examine their significance for the two countries’ post-communist trajectories, past, present, and future both domestically and in the wider European and Eurasian contexts with the help of broad historical, political, literary, and cultural disciplinary and interdisciplinary inquiries. 

 

Keynote Speakers: Dennis Deletant (Georgetown University) and Mihaela Miroiu (SNSPA). 

 

We welcome proposals for papers, panels and roundtables from junior and senior scholars working in a variety of disciplines: history, sociology, anthropology and ethnography, political science, philosophy, law and justice studies, literature and linguistics, economics, business, international affairs, religious, gender, film and media studies, art history, music, and education, among others. Possible topics might include, but are not limited to: 

 

• Precursors of 1989 (anti-Stalinist revolts and resistance, resistance through culture, the role of dissidents, everyday forms of resistance, Braşov 1987, etc.)

• The external context (Gorbachev’s Soviet Union, the events in East and Central Europe) 

• Western propaganda and the Romanian diasporas 

• 1989 in popular and official memory, historiography, film, literature and the arts 

• Legacies of World War I and World War II 

• Sources and archives 

• Communism, post-communism, and the arts 

• Writers and artists in post-communism 

• The Romanian new wave and the legacy of communism 

• European Union accession 

• Moldova between West and East 

• Legal and constitutional reforms 

• Party and electoral politics, and voting behavior 

• Free markets, neoliberalism and state paternalism 

• Romania’s place in Europe and in the region 

• Romania’s relationship with the Republic of Moldova 

• Moldova’s place in Europe and the region 

• The status of ethnic, religious and sexual minorities in Romania and Moldova 

• The reconfiguration of social stratification 

• Post-communist media and journalism 

• The role of the Orthodox Church, and of other religious groups 

• Dynamics of migration from and into Romania and Moldova 

• Policy analysis and public administration 

• Urban policies and architecture in communism and post-communism 

 

Individual paper proposals should include the title of the presentation, a brief abstract of up to 500 words, a short c.v., and contact information of the presenter. They should be sent in a single attached Word document by August 1, 2014 at srs2015conference@gmail.com. 

Proposals for 2-hour panels including 3-4 papers, one chair, and 1-2 discussants should provide a title and description of the panel topic, abstracts of all papers, short vitae, and contact information for all participants. Panel participants should be drawn from at least two different universities. 

Round tables proposals of 3-5 participants should include title and description of the topic, short vitae and contact information for all participants. In addition, the conference organizers will accept proposals for book panels. Submissions and presentations in French will be accepted, as long as they are for full panels and roundtables including members from more than one university. Participants will be notified of the acceptance of their proposal by October 15, 2014. 

 

In order to assure that the conference is accessible to scholars from across the Atlantic region and to those from Romania and the Republic of Moldova, the conference fees will be quite modest. For scholars from North America, the fee will be 40 USD; for those from the Eurozone and Western Europe, 40 Euros, and from Romania, Moldova and parts east, 40 Romanian Lei. Graduate students will be exempt from this fee. SRS membership will also be required and additional for those paying in USD and Euros, but included for those paying in Lei. 

Upcoming conference: "Imagining Alternative Modernities"

SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS

ABSTRACT DEADLINE: MARCH 17
 
We are excited to announce the interdisciplinary conference, "Imagining Alternative Modernities: Interventions from the Balkans and South Asia", which will take place at The Ohio State University, Columbus, October 9-11, 2014. The conference completes and complements a series of interdisciplinary activities in 2013-14, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the John E. Sawyer Seminars on the Comparative Study of Cultures grant program. For more information on the seminar, please visit: sawyer.osu.edu.
 

Keynote Speakers:

Tomislav Longinović, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Kalyanakrishnan Sivaramakrishnan, Yale University
 

On the surface, the Balkans and South Asia might seem to have little in common. However, despite many specific differences, they share similar dilemmas of linguistic, religious, cultural, and ethno-national complexity, similar turbulent political developments associated with imperial, post-colonial, and Cold War legacies, and a similar diversity of responses to these historical and contemporary challenges. Both areas have seen a mixing of people through migratory settlement, conquest, contact, and trade. But both have also experienced periods of reaction to cultural hybridity: a radical unmixing of people through partition and population exchange. The impact of these upheavals is seen in the direct violence of war and devastation, but also through crises on the levels of language, religion, and other modes of culture and human creative activity. The unique yet similar issues within each region compel us
towards a comparative approach that will offer a transnational perspective on the intersection of language, religion, culture, and nationalism.

 
We thus invite proposals for paper presentations from any disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective within the humanities and social sciences addressing one or more of the following themes in the Balkans or in South Asia, or comparatively between the two regions:


1.Violence, Gender, and Human Rights

2.Nation, Religion, Language, and Secularism

3. Minorities, State, Language, and Citizenship

4. Postcolonial and Postsocialist Perspectives on Neoliberalism
 

Additionally, selected papers will be included in a collection of essays resulting from the conference.

Graduate students are encouraged to participate. Limited funding is available for student lodging.

Please send a 350-word abstract in PDF format and brief (one paragraph maximum) bio to sawyerseminar@osu.edu by Monday March 17, 2014 (11:59pm).

Notifications of acceptance will be sent by May 1, 2014 and the program will be announced by June 1, 2014. 

Call for Applications! 2014 Summer Research Laboratory at Illinois

The Summer Research Laboratory (SRL) on Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia is open to scholars with research interests in the East European region for eight weeks during the summer months from June 16 until August 8. The SRL provides scholars access to the resources of the University of Illinois Slavic collection within a flexible time frame where scholars have the opportunity to seek advice and research support from the librarians of the Slavic Reference Service (SRS).  Graduate students and junior scholars will also have opportunity to attend a specialized workshop on Scholarly and Literary Translation from June 16-20, 2014.

The deadline for grant funding is April 15 and is fast approaching! REEEC will continue to receive applications for the Summer Research Lab after the grant deadline, but housing and travel funds will not be guaranteed.

For further information and to apply, please use this link http://www.reeec.illinois.edu/srl/?utm_source=SEESA%20&utm_medium=Bloglistserv&utm_campaign=SRL2014.

For graduate students, the SRL provides an opportunity to conduct research prior to going abroad and extra experience to refine research skills.  Students will also have the opportunity of seeking guidance from specialized librarians skilled in navigating resources pertaining to and originating from Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia.

The SRS is an extensive service that provides access to a wide range of materials that center on and come from: Russia, the Former Soviet Union, Czech and Slovak Republics, Former Yugoslavia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. The International & Area Studies Library, where the Slavic reference collections are housed, contains work stations for readers, a collection of basic reference works, and current issues of over 1,000 periodicals and 110 newspapers in Western and area languages.

The Slavic Reference Service provides access to several unique resources pertaining to the Russian, East European and Eurasian region.  Currently, there are plans at the University of Illinois’ to become the first library in the Western Hemisphere to gain access to the Russian State Library’s Electronic Dissertations Database, which contains the full text of nearly 1 million dissertations in a wide variety of fields. 

In addition, the SRS provides access to

•  the Andrei Codrescu Collection (1929-2004) granted to the library by the poet with 42 folders of materials containing manuscripts, reviews, interviews, literary drafts, materials from conferences, etc.;   
• full-text access to well over 100 Romanian humanities and social science journals through Central and Eastern European Online Library;
• the microfilm collection Yugoslavia: Peoples, States, and Society consisting of 109 reels, which include a unique set of short monographs, pamphlets, and other materials on the Balkan Wars, World War I and the South Slavs, interwar Yugoslavia, and World War II; 
• microfiche collection Russian-Ottoman Relations, 1600-1914. Part 1: The Origins, 1600-1800 containing approximately 193 titles on Russian-Ottoman relations: diplomatic treaties, travel reports, decrees, eye-witness accounts of military campaigns, and policy deliberations;
• other extensive print, digital, and microform holdings relating to Eastern Europe, including rare materials acquired via Keith Hitchins and other noted scholars.

 

Imagining Alternative Modernities: Interventions from the Balkans and South Asia

We are excited to announce the interdisciplinary conference, "Imagining Alternative Modernities: Interventions from the Balkans and South Asia", which will take place at The Ohio State University, Columbus, October 9-11, 2014. The conference completes and complements a series of interdisciplinary activities in 2013-14, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the John E. Sawyer Seminars on the Comparative Study of Cultures grant program. For more information on the seminar, please visit: sawyer.osu.edu.

On the surface, the Balkans and South Asia might seem to have little in common. However, despite many specific differences, they share similar dilemmas of linguistic, religious, cultural, and ethno-national complexity, similar turbulent political developments associated with imperial, post-colonial, and Cold War legacies, and a similar diversity of responses to these historical and contemporary challenges. Both areas have seen a mixing of people through migratory settlement, conquest, contact, and trade. But both have also experienced periods of reaction to cultural hybridity: a radical unmixing of people through partition and population exchange. The impact of these upheavals is seen in the direct violence of war and devastation, but also through crises on the levels of language, religion, and other modes of culture and human creative activity. The unique yet similar issues within each region compel us towards a comparative approach that will offer a transnational perspective on the intersection of language, religion, culture, and nationalism.

We thus invite proposals for paper presentations from any disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective within the humanities and social sciences addressing one or more of the following themes in the Balkans or in South Asia, or comparatively between the two regions: 

1. Violence, Gender, and Human Rights 

2. Nation, Religion, Language, and Secularism 

3. Minorities, State, Language, and Citizenship 

4. Postcolonial and Postsocialist Perspectives on Neoliberalism

Additionally, selected papers will be included in a collection of essays resulting from the conference.

Graduate students are encouraged to participate. Limited funding is available for student lodging.

Please send a 350-word abstract in PDF format and brief (one paragraph maximum) bio to sawyerseminar@osu.edu by Monday March 17, 2014 (11:59pm). Notifications of acceptance will be sent by May 1, 2014 and the program will be announced by June 1, 2014.