Institute of Contemporary History

Workshop: Instrumentalization of History and Politicization of Public Spaces (1989-2022)

We are pleased to invite you to the international workshop „Instrumentalization of History and Politicization of Public Spaces (1989-2022)“, which is taking place on Thursday 27 October 2022 from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Václav Havel Library (Ostrovní 129/13, Prague 1). The workshop will be held in English. We kindly ask you to confirm your attendance by 23 October 2022 by sending an e-mail to petra.svarda@gmail.com.

Program:

Session 1: 9:30–12:30, chair Petra Švardová

• Melinda Harlov-Csortán (Apor Vilmos Catholic College in Vác)
  Changing perception of monuments in Budapest, Hungary after 1989.
• Marína Zavacká (Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences)
  Crowned horseman as a gift for the nation. Statue of Svätopluk and the „reasonable state historicism“ in 2010 Slovakia.
• Maria Czaputowicz-Głowacka (Faculty of Culture and Arts at the University of Warsaw)
  Heroic Narratives in Urban Space: The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw after 1990.
• Jakub Jareš (MUSEum+ and Faculty of Education, Charles University Prague)
  Brownfields of memory. Communist labour camps in Jáchymov region as entangled heritage.
• Adam Hudek (Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences)
  Museum of Slovak National Uprising as a symbolic battlefield of Slovak post-1989 national narratives.

Lunch 12:30–14:00

 Session 2: 14:00–17:00, chair Adam Hudek

• Petra Švardová (Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences)
  Never-ending struggles for public space: Communist era monuments after 1989 in Czechoslovakia.
• Ina Belcheva (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University)
  Visual erasure of a dissonant monument in 1990s Bulgaria.
• Kristina Zmejauskaite (Dublin City University)
  Art versus Politics: (Un)wanted Soviet Heritage in the Baltic States.
• Mischa Gabowitsch (RECET and IWM, Vienna)
  Soviet and post-Soviet war memorials in Russian-occupied Ukraine since February 2022.
• Julie Deschepper (Utrecht University)
  Weaponization of History and (Ab)Uses of Monumental Heritage in Russia.

Dinner from 19:00

• Program in PDF

The project was financially supported by:

• European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101038067.
• Agency for the Support of Research and Development project no. APVV-20-0526 „Political socialization in the territory of Slovakia during the years 1848 – 1993“, carried out at the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

The workshop is one of the outputs of the Program for the Support of Prospective Human Resources – Postdoctoral Fellows of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, project no. L300632201.