Queering 20th-Century East Central Europe. Archives – Emotions – Histories

Program

TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2026

13:30–14:00 Registration

14:00–14:10

Opening of the Conference

Welcome by the organizers and partner institutions

14:10–15:25

Panel 1: Archives, Recovery, and Queer Life-Writing (Chair: Judit Takács, ELTE Centre for Social Sciences, Budapest)

• Barbara Schnalzger (MONAliesA – Feminist Library and Archive, Leipzig)

  Archiving Queer Lives: The Herstory of the “Lila Archiv” in East Germany

• Paweł Matusz (University of Regensburg)

  Where Is Zbigniew P.? An Attempt to Reconstruct an Archive of the Host of Queer Balls in Poznań in the 1960s and 1970s

• Dani Carron (European University Institute, Florence)

  “Deutschland – Einig Hetenland? [Germany – United Hetero-land?]” Queer Engagements with German Reunification, 1989–1991

15:25–15:45 Coffee break

15:45–17:00

Panel 2: Institutions, Expertise, and the Governance of Sexuality (Chair: Anna Dobrowolska, University of Basel)

• Eha Emilia Oras (University of Tallinn)

  Conceptualization of Sexual and Gender Variance by Medical Professionals in Interwar Estonia (1918–1940)

• Michał Narożniak (European University Institute, Florence)

  Wojciech the Hermaphrodite and Leon Wachholz: Early-Modern Lives, Fin-de-Siècle Forensics, and the Emergence of Gender Identity Category

• Flavia Guerrini (University of Innsbruck)

  What Survives in a Hostile Archive? Recovering Traces of Queer Youth in the Archives of Child and Youth Welfare

17:00–17:30 Coffee break

17:30–19:00
Keynote Lecture

Welcome by Věra Sokolová, the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University

Ann Cvetkovich (University of Texas at Austin)

Feeling My Way through the Archives: A Journey in Queer Method

WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 2026

10:00–11:15

Panel 3: Sexology, Psychiatry, and Gender Concepts under Socialism (Chair: Věra Sokolová, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague)

• Stoyo Tetevenski (Sofia University)

  “Gender Self-Esteem”: Gender and Gender Identity in Socialist Bulgaria

• Zsófia Anna Veszely (European University Institute)

  Queer Comrades: Teenage Friendship and Same-Sex Desire in Hungarian Sex Education during the Cold War

• Inxhi Brisku (Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)

  From Prison to Psychiatry: Queer Lives and Medicalization in Socialist Albania

11:15–11:30 Coffee break

11:30–12:45

Panel 4: War, Occupation, and Queer Lives in Extremis (Chair: Jaromír Mrňka, German Historical Institute Warsaw – Prague Branch)

• Frédéric Stroh (University of Strasbourg, ARCHE)

  Race and Sexuality under Nazism: The History of Slovenian Homosexuals during the Second World War in a Museum Cellar

• William Ross Jones (University of Oxford)

  Risk(y) Reading: A Reparative Framework of Risk for the Trans Feminine Past

• Eugenia Seleznova (Central European University)

  "Straightening", Silences, Utilizing "Girlhood": Three Strategies of a Soviet WWII Youth Resistance Member's Queer Story Public Narrations

12:45–14:00 Lunch break

14:00–15:30

Panel 5: Public Discourses and the Making of Queer Modernities (Chair: Rasa Navickaitė, Vilnius University)

• Barbara Trojanowska (European University Institute, Florence)

  Heartfelt Friends: Women-Loving Women in Habsburg Galicia’s Public Discourse

• Judit Takács (ELTE Centre for Social Sciences, Budapest), Gábor Csiszár (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)

  Queer Intimacies in the Hungarian Popular Press, 1910–1939

• Anna Borgos (Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, HUNREN, Budapest)

  From Abnormal Sexual Feelings to Rebellious Women: Representations of Women’s Same Sex Attractions in Hungary from the Prewar Years to the State Socialist Period

• Denisa Vídeňská (Brno University of Technology)

  Caught in the Trap of Representation: Visual Images of Female Homosexuality in Interwar Czechoslovakia

15:30–15:45 Coffee break

15:45–17:00

Panel 6: Cultural Fields, Visuality, and Memory Politics (Chair: Josef Šebek, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague)

• Kata Benedek (Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague)

  Queer Cultural Capital in State Socialist Cultural Fields. The Hungarian Case / Releasing Emotional Archives: Ethical Reflections on Two Unreleased Queer Documentaries (1981 & 1986) from State-Socialist Hungary

• Maria Vtorushina (European University Viadrina Frankfurt-Oder)

  Studying Queer Embodiment in Ukrainian Art: Museums and Archives — Allies or Obstacles?

• Anna Dżabagina (University of Warsaw)

  “Catastrophe of Rampant Homosexuality” – Tracing Lesbian Past in 19th and early 20th Century Polish Egodocuments

17:30–20:00

Queering the East Central European Art: A Cosy Evening at the Laichter House

17:30–18:00

• Štěpán Lars Laichter, Larissa Friedrich (Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, Institute of the Leibniz Association, Marburg)

Introduction to the Laichter House and the Exhibition with a special view on Jan Laichter and his connection to Rainer Maria Rilke

18:00–18:45

• Lisa Röcke & Maximilian Wahlich (The Bauhaus Archive, Berlin) 

Queer Bauhaus: New Insights on Major Figures of the Bauhaus

18:45–19:30

• Gideon Horváth, moderated by Larissa Friedrich

Artist Talk: Discussion with a Contemporary Hungarian Artist

19:30

• Opening of the Exhibition “Unknown Longings, Hidden Feelings – Concealed Stories in Authoritarian States”

THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2026

10:00–11:15

Panel 7: Activism, Crisis, and Community Knowledge (Chair: Michal Pitoňák, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague)

• Magda Wlostowska (Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe, GWZO Leipzig)

  Documenting Queer Activists’ Responses to the HIV/AIDS Crisis in Late Socialist and Early Post-Socialist Poland

• Rasa Navickaitė (Vilnius University)

  Between Sexiness and Monstrosity: Representations of Lesbianism in Post-Soviet Lithuania

• Franko Dota (University of Rijeka, Zagreb)

  A Letter from Macedonia: The Homophile Voice from the Archives of Yugoslav Queer Lives

11:15–11:30 Coffee break

11:30–13:00

Panel 8: Friendship, Affect, and Queer Memory Across Borders (Chair: Kateřina Kolářová, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague)

• Georgia-Taygeti Katakou (European University Institute, Florence)

  Archiving the Greek Left: Friendship, Queerness, and Counter-Communities of Emotion

• Riikka Taavetti (University of Turku)

  Connections in Interwar Northeastern European Queer History: Martti Laine’s novel Kuilu (1937) in Finnish and Transnational Contexts

• Shaban Darakchi (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences/University of Lund)

  Love, Secrecy, and State Power: Affective Traces of a Lesbian Relationship in Socialist Bulgaria

• Ioana Zamfir (University of Oxford)

  Mapping Soviet and Post-Soviet Queer Desire: Reconsidering Identity Formation through Spaces of Affection and Tenderness

13:00–14:00 Lunch break

14:00–15:15

Panel 9: Queer Subjects and Cultural Imaginaries (Chair: Eszter Timár, Central European University, Vienna)

• Mathias Foit (University of Padua)

  The Male Bride of Breslau, Hungary’s George Sand and the L’Uomo-Donna of Rome: The Queer Diva and Gender Non-Conformity in Belle Époque and Interwar Europe (approximately 1901–1935)

• Eszter Varsa (Central European University / Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences)

  Approaches to the Silenced Queer History of Romani Woman Activist Mária László in 1950s Hungary

• Jennifer Ramme (University of Graz / Museum of Modern Art Warsaw)

  No Hero’s Tale: Tracing Queerness in Alternative Cultures and Music Scenes of Late State Socialism in Poland

15:15–16:00 Final Discussion and Conference Conclusions – Towards Publications (Chair: Jaromír Mrňka)

16:00 End of the Conference