Archiving, Collecting, and Publishing in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, Institute of the Leibniz Association, August 28-30, 2024 for Early Career Researchers, Doctoral Students and Early Postdocs
Organizers: Tatsiana Astrouskaya, Denisa Nešťáková, Florian Neiske
Urbańczyk collection of the Polish underground press, Herder Institute The Herder Institute Summer Academy invites Early Career Researchers, including Advanced Master Students, Ph.D. Students, and Early Postdocs, to participate in a workshop dealing with the East and Central European diaspora’s experiences of collecting, archiving, and publishing in exile. Eastern Europe can be characterized by constant flux, with peoples, objects, andinstitutions undergoing continuous movement. From the late nineteenth century through periods of wars, revolutions, and the Cold War, various social, ethnic, religious, and political groups were compelled to migrate and exile due to poverty, catastrophes of the twentieth century, aspirations for better lives, and sometimes escaping prosecution for both trumped-up accusation and actual WWII crimes. Mass migration entails the establishment of cultural institutions in new environments, including archives, libraries, and publishing houses, which serve as mediators between cultures and their bearers, both within and outside their respective countries.
Suppressed under socialism, East European cultures sought avenues to the „free world,“ yet they were influenced by the ideological confrontation between East and West. Along with opposing the unfreedoms of Socialism in their native countries and on the global scale, publishing activities in the diaspora could include the dissemination of far-right and radical nationalist ideas. Furthermore, conflicts, recriminations, suspicions, and financial quarrels were not rare and they occupied a visible place in émigré publications. How can we critically engage with this heritage while paying attention to its diversity and historical significance?
The Summer Academy will delve into the publishing and collecting initiatives that emerged across Europe and the world following World War II, continuing into the late 1980s. Equally crucial is the issue of preservation and accessibility, which can be facilitated through digitization. However, the challenge lies in how to approach and digitally connect the scattered multicultural and multilingual collections. Against the backdrop of Russia’s ongoing aggressive war in Ukraine and mounting repressions in Belarus and Russia, East European cultures find themselves once again facing exile and emigration, while the Cold War experience of émigré activities at archiving, collecting, and publishing regain its relevance.
With its extensive archival materials, including the unique Urbańczyk collection of the Polish underground press from the era of Solidarność, the newspaper clippings archive from the Cold War period, and the comprehensive periodicals archive covering Eastern and Central Europe, the Herder Institute provides an exceptional foundation for this thematic focus, which will be explored through various theoretical and practical thematic units.
Program
August 28, 2024 Greetings : Heidi Hein-Kircher , Head of the Academic Forum, Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, Organizers Anton Hruboň (Faculty of Political Science and International Relations, Matej Bel University): Not All Political Emigrants Go to the Heaven: Post-War Fascist-Axis Émigrés Self-Made Image and Critical History (hybrid)Denisa Nešťáková , Herder Institute, Marburg
17:00-18:30 – Panel 1. Reassembling National Art and Culture in Transnational Institutions (hybrid)Anne Kasprzack (Inalco, Paris): The International Dimensions of the Instytut Literacki (Kultura) and Its Literature During the Cold War: Towards the Internationalization of Polish Literature? (online)Triin Metsla (Estonian Art Academy, Tallinn): Recreation of National Culture in Exile Through Visual Images in Estonian Refugee Magazines (1945-1950)Ola Sidorkiewicz (University of Oxford): Stefan Themerson’s and Maria Kuncewicz’s Search for Alternative Communities. The Case of the Gaberbocchus Press and the PEN Club Centre for Writers in ExileHeidi Hein-Kircher
August 29, 2024 Karalina Matskevich (Francis Skaryna Belarusian Library and Museum, London): The Making of a Library in Exile: the Vision and Practices of the Skaryna Library, Past and Present (hybrid)Tatsiana Astrouskaya , Herder Institute
11:00-12:00 Panel 2. Digital Processing and Preservation of Exile Collections (hybrid)Erdal Ayan (University of Kassel): Extracting Biographical Networks of Person Objects with Exile Background from Newspaper Clippings at Herder Institute MarburgLora Egle (World Federation of Free Latvians and European Latvian Youth Association): Latvian Archives Abroad – a Project for Digitally Preserving the Information Encoded in the Archival Materials Held by Latvian Communities Worldwide (online)Denisa Nešťáková , Herder Institute
13:00-16:00 – Hands-On Workshop with the Collections of the Herder Institute (Christian Lotz, Agnese Bergholde-Wolf, Anna Caroline Haubold )
16:30-17:30 – Panel 3. Exilees’ Entangled Identities Zsolt Máté (University of Pécs): Covering a Historical Event. The 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Refugee Reception in the American Hungarian PressSarah Grandke (The Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, University of Regensburg): Unheard Memory Activists?! Non-Jewish Displaced Persons and Commemoration Projects for Nazi Victims in German-speaking Countries (1945-1951)Florian Neiske, Herder Institute and Marburg University
17:30-19:00 – Expert Discussion: Displaced Narratives: Archiving, Collecting, and Publishing in Exile (hybrid)Ann Komaromi , University of Toronto (online); Christian Lotz , Herder Institute, Yasha Klots (Hunter College)Tatsiana Astrouskaya
August 30, 2024 09:45-11:15 – Panel 4. Publication and Dissemination Networks Tetiana Shyshkina (GCSC, JLU Giessen): Cooperation and Conflict: Yiddish Publishing Houses in the USSR and the US During and After WWIIOleksandr Avramchuk (John Paul II Catholic University Lublin): Paper Bullets. The Prolog Research Corporation and Ukrainian Exile Publishing during the Cold WarHannah Steckelberg (Austria): A Publishing House in Exile(s): Dzvin in Kyiv, Vienna and Prague – A Case StudyTatsiana Astrouskaya
11:30-12:30 – Panel 5. Unveiling Women’s Experiences of Emigration and Exile Tania Arcimovich (University of Erfurt): (Post)War Migration from Soviet Belarus and the (Im)Possibility of Women’s HistoryElizaveta Olkhovaia (University of Bremen): Chronicle of the Women’s Camp in Barashevo: Variations, Authors, LocationsDenisa Nešťáková
The language of the Academy is English. The questions of an academic nature may be addressed to the Summer Academy’s academic coordinators:tatsiana.astrouskaya@herder-institut.de denisa.nestakova@herder-institut.de
