Call For Papers

The vital and complex role of the landowning elites in the political, economic, and cultural history of Europe has been extensively researched, resulting in a wealth of literature. However, the question of how this role has been remembered since the dissolution of these elites as a social class, and what the implications of this memory and legacy are for contemporary European societies, has only recently been addressed by sociologists, historians, and anthropologists.

The opening hypothesis of the conference is that post-feudal social structures, which were a consequence of the power dynamics between the landowners and peasants, can be examined through a perspective of the longue durée. The existence of landowners as a class was brought to an end by political decisions and revolutionary movements, or gradually transitioned into social and political systems based on more democratic principles. This led to various legacies from the past, modes of remembrance, and finally, legal and economic circumstances. These diverse trajectories serve as a reminder of the East-West dichotomy in Europe, as in part of Central and Eastern Europe the end of the landowners' domination came with bloodshed and violence, as part of the making of the ‘Bloodlands’. However, our aim is to go beyond this dichotomy and see whether schemes other than East-West can be employed to understand the diversity of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy history in Europe.

An illustration of this diversity is also the multitude of terms used to describe the phenomena we discuss and its internal stratification. While we use the ahistorical terms "landowners" or the „landowning elites” as the overarching terms for the purpose of this call for papers, we acknowledge that in different regional contexts, more specific categories such as gentry, nobility, and aristocracy are relevant. We also welcome discussion on the terms used in the papers.

Individual and collective memory of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy, and in a broader sense, of the post-feudal period with all its complexities, will, however, vary depending not only on how the landowners' era concluded, but also on its characteristics in different regions of Central and Eastern Europe. The landowning elites might have shared the same ethnicity and religion as the subordinate classes, or they could have been of different backgrounds, such as in Eastern Galicia, where Poles owned vast swathes of land populated by ethnic Ukrainians. They could have also belonged to the titular nation of the nation-state, as in interwar Poland, or been ethnically connected to another nation, as was the case with the German aristocracy in interwar Czechoslovakia. Its social and political standing, as well as its proportion within the general population, could range from significant, as seen in Hungary, to marginal, as observed in Romania. Moreover, the gentry, nobility and aristocracy could either be the sole elite in the country or blend, compete with, or even give rise to other influential groups, as exemplified by the Polish intelligentsia. Lastly, the current status of the landowning elites and their (former) property varies greatly across Europe: from regions where its status was never formally challenged, such as in Great Britain, to countries where extensive (re)privatization laws were enacted after the collapse of communism, like in the Czech Republic and Lithuania, and to the post-Soviet states of Ukraine and Belarus, where the issue of reprivatization was never politicized and remains largely absent from public discourse.

With this complex agenda in mind, we want to approach the topic of this conference in a comparative and contextualised perspective. We wish to pose questions about memory of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy as inscribed in the official narrative, vernacular beliefs, cultural practices and art. We will have a close look at the approach to the their material heritage, the role its history and legacy plays in maintaining collective identities on the local and national levels, as well as the complexity of the legal constraints involved. We will be interested in broadening our approach to the dynamics of the social relations between various actors and seeing among them not only the landowning elites and peasantry, but also Jews in their traditional and less conventional roles, city dwellers as a counter-community, rich bourgeoisie as the competing and/or aspiring class, and intelligentsia with its multifaceted role. Thus, we will include the internal and external perspective of various memory actors and keepers. Additionally, our key focus will be the material heritage: objects, buildings and spaces as spheres of interference, contested property battleground and non-sites of difficult memories.

The proposed papers might address, but not be limited, to the following issues:

THE LONGUE DURÉE OF POST-FEUDAL STRUCTURES
• How did the memory of the landowning elites, their role and status change over the time? What were the dividing lines or the turning points?
• What is the group memory dynamics among the descendants of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy themselves, among people with peasant origins, and in local village communities where once the gentry resided?
• What are the main determinants of this memory – how are violence, power relations and class dependencies remembered?
• How can the longue durée of the post-feudal social mechanisms and structures be discovered in the cultural memory, values and elements of the identity of different social groups?
• How are various aspects of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy ethos perceived in contemporary social life, art and culture?
• Who endeavours to uphold this ethos as the ethos of their own group – in other words, who currently belongs to the group that regards the landowning elites’ legacy as its own?

CHANGE
• How the ways the post-feudal system was dissolved in different countries influenced the memory of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy?
• How the categories of guilt, victimhood and historical justice have been employed in the narratives about the end of these groups’ domination on various levels (local, group, national)?
• How is the violence against the gentry, nobility and aristocracy that accompanied their dissolution as a social strata – physical, political and symbolic – remembered today?
• In which form, if any, is the past social order reactivated if an estate is bought by a new owner? How does such new ownership, be it by descendants of a historical landowning family, or by new people, resonate with the legacy of the past?
• How did the memory and survival strategies of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy families form and evolve during the communist and post-communist period?

MATERIAL HERITAGE
• What is the status of the material heritage of the gentry, nobility and aristocracy – manors, parks and palaces? To what extent is it considered common heritage – by local communities, by the national community, and by authorities on various levels?
• What does the memoryscape of such places look like?
• What are the commemorative practices connected with such spaces?
• Does the issue of the post-1989 (re)privatisation influence attitudes towards the landowning elites’ material heritage?

REGIONAL AND PARTICULAR VS. UNIVERSAL
• What is the specificity of memory related to the gentry, nobility and aristocracy in various European countries? Is the East-West division the main important one?
• Is the memory of the aristocracy different from the memory of the lower nobility, or landowners without noble titles? How does the social and political diversification of the landowning elites in the past influence its memory today?
• Which historical factors influence the collective and individual memory, as well as memorial practices?
• Is the overlapping of class, ethnicity and religion in the past decisive for the contemporary memory of the landowning elites and post-feudality?
• Is there any specific memory of the Jewish landed gentry?
• Can any parallels be found outside Europe? What is the postcolonial aspect of the landowning elites’ historical presence in these countries?

We welcome submissions from memory studies, heritage studies, and other related disciplines. The comparative approach will be particularly welcome.

Research topic for Visegrad Scholarship at Open Society Archives
Academic year 2024/2025

The Language(s) of Freedom(s)

The criticism about infringements of academic freedom, or about the radicalization of autocratic powers cannot do without an understanding of the loaded vocabularies of freedoms in the past and present, for both societies and their elites. A complex rethinking and recontextualization of the thinkers of liberties, including from the Cold War era, must also be undertaken, together with the truth-seeking adventures and projects from the past.

We invite historians, researchers, political scientists, sociologists and socially engaged artists to reflect on the past uses of the languages of (attaining) freedoms by taking cues from the Blinken OSA collections. The applicants are encouraged to reflect on the connections as well as on the differences between current times and the past by following some recommended sub-topics listed below.

-the contribution to Eastern European intellectuals and dissenters to political philosophy in the past and present, the relevance and afterlife of their insights [clues: personal collections of Eastern European oppositionist and the RFE collections regarding their activities]

-the comparative and different understandings of what constituted authorship and censorship

-independentist movements in the 90s: the complex interplay of nationalism, decolonization, political freedoms and their impact nowadays [clues: curated collection Winning Freedom, Ukraine 1989-1991 https://ukraine.89-91.osaarchivum.org/ and similar collections from the Soviet Red Archives, Samizdat archives, Western Press Archives]

-the representation and analysis of citizens’ aspirations within the communist regimes by internal and external observers; what was the understanding of political freedoms in relationship with other rights? [clue: the collection of audience and opinion surveys done by RFE and RL]

-the fascination with the revolution and social movements among the Western intellectuals and the communist parties within the non-communist countries; self-reflexivity with regards the nature of real existing socialism [clue: Kevin Devlin collection]

-the different meanings of freedom in the East and the West, and the transformation brought by the human rights paradigm

-the complex status of the alternative movements and artistic phenomena within centralized socialist systems (from gray zones to radical opposition); the transformative meaning they gave to an official lexicon through their concern with “peace,” “futures,” etc.

-the dysfunctional relationship between language and meaning and the ensuing concern for truth within different intellectual and scientific communities

- the language of transnational politics in the 70s and the adaptation of local political visions to the language of Western liberatory international organizations (ILO, Helsinki institutions, Amnesty international), etc.

-discursive strategies of Cold War observers, theorists and activists:

-the usage of the term totalitarianism, analytical term or discursive mechanism revived by the transnational activism and history writing in the 70s and 1980s (a situation re-emerging now?)

-the role of “liberatory” Western radios within the Cold War: political impact, protective strategies towards endangered oppositionist, documentation of issues then and now

-What have was or could be achieved by preserving records documenting rights abuses? A critical assessment of and ways of repurposing human rights archiving in times of democratic backsliding.

Blinken OSA Archivum research program
The current call is part of a reflexive-research program at Blinken OSA Archivum interested in connecting past issues related to oppressive regimes, censorship, violence and information manipulation to current phenomena. We would like to assess the potential of a genealogical project linking the contemporary epistemic and political crisis of democracy to past modes of inquiry and activism.

Admission
We seek to promote exchanges among people with backgrounds in the arts, humanities and social sciences in the way they think through and about archives while being concerned with current problems. From this point of view, the invitation is addressed to all scholars interested in theories of knowledge, who would use Blinken OSA Archivum documents as props for larger reflections and activist concerns.

Fellowship requirements and Blinken OSA Archivum support
While working on their own subject, fellows will have the opportunity to collaborate with Blinken OSA Archivum researchers and to transform their archival investigation into a full research experience. The fellows are invited to give a final presentation about their research findings at Blinken OSA Archivum and the ways in which the documents were relevant to their research. The presentations are organized within the Visegrad Scholarship at Blinken OSA Archivum lecture series and as such are open for the general public.
Blinken OSA Archivum academic and archival staff will assist the fellows in their investigations, facilitate contact with the CEU community, and grant access to the CEU library. Besides its archival analogue collections, Blinken OSA Archivum can also offer access to unique, audio-visual materials related to documentary practices, a special collection of RFE (anti)propaganda books and a growing collection on digital humanities, human rights, archival theory and philosophy.

About the Fellowship
The twenty grants of 3000 euro each are designed to provide access to the archives for scholars, artists, and journalists, and to cover travel to and from Budapest, a modest subsistence, and accommodation for a research period of eight weeks. Stipends for shorter periods are pro-rated.

Applicants, preferably but not exclusively, from a V4 country, may be researchers, students after their second degree carrying out research, or artists, journalists, academics, or both.
Scholars at risk from war zones as well as refugees of conscience (scholars fleeing authoritarian regimes) are especially invited to apply.

Submission deadlines for the 2024/25 academic year
• July 25, 2024
• November 15, 2024

Assessment
The Selection Committee will evaluate proposals on the strength of the professional quality and novelty of the research proposal, its relevance to the chosen topic and the involvement of the Blinken OSA Archivum holdings in the research. In the case of equal scores those from V4 countries have an advantage. The artists submitting proposals are kindly required to frame their application as research-based projects as well, carefully indicating the collections they will rely on. The artistic proposals will be assessed according to their merit, originality, timeliness as well as their feasibility (with regards to their reliance on available Blinken OSA Archivum collections). Blinken OSA Archivum can only offer conditions for the realization of artistic research, not for production.

Application procedure
Please submit the following to Blinken OSA Archivum (in one merged pdf)
1. Application letter in English (should specify expected period of stay and preferred dates and how you learnt about the scholarship (through which courses, instructors, social media groups or pages, websites, academic platforms, Blinken OSA Archivum public programs/ projects etc. you were informed about this scholarship).
Please note that the Archive’s Research Room is closed during the Christmas period, and the research stay must end on the last day of the given academic year, July 31.
2. Research description/plan in English (about 800 words and should include the following: introduction, presentation of the stage of research, literature on the subject, preliminary hypothesis, questions, identification of possible documents in the Blinken OSA Archivum holdings). Artists are expected to submit a portfolio, too. We recommend you refer to one of the topics in your application. Please also mention the specific collections you would like to consult.
3. Curriculum Vitae (C.V.)
4. Proof of officially recognized advanced level English language exam (native speakers and those with qualification from an English language institution/degree program are exempted)
5. Names of two referees with contact address. Letters of reference are not needed.
The Application letter, C.V., the Research description/plan, the copy of a language exam certification and the Referees’ contact information should be sent by email to Katalin Gadoros at gadoros@ceu.edu.

Selection Committee
All members of the committee are academic staff of Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives / Central European University or the Visegrad Fund.

More Information
To find out more about the program, please visit : https://www.osaarchivum.org/work-with-us/fellowship/visegrad-scholarship

Contact Information
The Application letter, C.V., the Research description/plan, the copy of a language exam certification and the Referees’ contact information should be sent by email to Katalin Gadoros at gadoros@ceu.edu.

Biennial conferences of the International Oral History Association (IOHA) allow for reviewing the global conditions and problems of oral history, regardless of the actual conference theme. This time, however, the organizers of the 23RD IOHA Conference call on oral historians worldwide to consciously rethink the idea and practice of their discipline.

Oral history today faces both old and new challenges with long-lasting and unpredictable consequences: the crisis of liberal democracy, growing tensions in international politics, climate change with its devastating outcomes on human life, increasing inequalities, wars, and mass migrations. All of the foregoing not only affect the conditions in which oral history is made, but also compels us to rethink its very aim. For Central and Eastern Europe, the full-scale Russian aggression in Ukraine beginning in February 2022 and its consequences are an especially painful reminder of that. Though oral history was, and still is a part of history, it has always been conscious of the responsibility (oral) history has for the current society. Aware of that mission, we encourage the global oral history community to return to the core questions of our practice: what kind of histories should we tell and pass on to the current and future generations?

Therefore, we invite oral historians to rethink this essential issue during the conference that will take place in September 2025 at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. Participants are encouraged to address one or more of the following questions in their proposals:

– Political involvement or independence: is ethical neutrality achievable and morally correct in a polarized world?
– Methodological standards: how much does the technological development of AI challenge them?
– Healing the wounds: how far can the therapeutic role of oral history go?
– Oral history responses to human crises: what methodological and ethical problems of emergency documenting and archiving may we use?
– “Lending our ears” (Portelli): how can we provide silenced and marginalized voices access to the public discourse?
– Oral history and environmental history: what are the areas of cooperation?
– Empowering community archives: how to teach them to create their own oral histories?
– How do we balance the dominance of Western academia with the voices of the non-Western world? – agency and resources.
– Globality versus locality of oral history: how to translate local practices into internationally recognized scholarship?
– Post-coloniality: how does oral history help societies reckon with colonial pasts and assist in building post-colonial futures?
– Disseminating oral history: what new methods can we use to present interviews to our audiences?
– Multilingualism as a challenge to global oral history: how to record stories in mother tongues?

Proposals for individual papers, session panels (5 papers each), or audio visual presentations (film/play screenings followed by round table discussions) are to be submitted by July 31, 2024, via the online form on the conference website: https://ioha2025.conference.pl. Members of national oral history associations are encouraged to check the appropriate box and provide the name of the relevant organization.

Individual paper proposals (up to 300 words) must contain the title of the paper, an abstract, and a short bio-note of its author(s). Panel proposals (up to 600 words) must include the title and a description of the session, the titles of all papers, and short bio-notes for all participants. Panel proposals must be international in membership (representing at least two countries). Please indicate the language of your paper/panel (English or Spanish). Audio-visual presentation proposals, in addition to including a description of the film/play (up to 300 words), must provide the names and bios of all discussants. If the film/play is not in English, please make sure that it is subtitled. English will be the main language of the conference. Only the plenary events will be translated into Spanish.

Decisions on the acceptance or rejection of proposals will be announced by the end of September 2024. Registration will be open between October 2024 and January 2025. The conference’s program will be ready by February 2025.

The organizers will not cover travel and accommodation costs; however, IOHA may provide a limited number of travel grants (more information on how to apply can be found on the IOHA website).