Workshop: National Communism in Socialist Federations
Organizers: Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, v. v. i.; Study Centre for National Reconciliation, Ljubljana
Nationalism was never alien to communism. In most socialist dictatorships, nationalism presented a welcome source of ideological legitimation, especially when communist regimes were losing their appeal to the general public. For a significant part of the communist party elite and Marxist intellectuals, nationalism was an essential part of their ideological self-identification. In multinational communist states and/or socialist federations, the complicated relations between communist ideology and nationalism were particularly noticeable. The different national communisms competed or coexisted with each other and with state-supported, supranational concepts like Czechoslovak and Soviet patriotism or Yugoslavism. The interactions between the federal structures and national communism are, therefore, the main focus of the workshop.
Program:
14 September
9:45 – 10:00 Workshop opening
10:00 – 10:30 Keynote speech
- Tomaž Ivešić (Study Centre for National Reconciliation, Ljubljana)
Concepts in the Marxist-Leninist Thought and the Socialist Nation-Building in Central and Eastern Europe
10:40 – 12:40 Panel I: National Communism in Yugoslavia
Chair: Ondřej Vojtěchovský (Charles University, Prague)
- Maciej Czerwiński (Jagiellonian University, Krakow)
National Objectives and the Yugoslav Communist State. The Case of Miroslav Krleža - Marijana Kardum (University of Zagreb)
Savka Dabčević Kučar: A Woman Heading a Communist Hierarchy and a National Reformist Movement - Helena Stolnik Trenkić (Cambridge University)
Self-determination and Socialist (Inter)nationalism in Croatian Student Politicisation, 1966-1972 - Nikola Zečević (Ludwig Maximilian University, München)
Forging Exclusive Identity: Montenegrin Nationalism in Socialist Yugoslavia
14:00 – 15:30 Panel II: National communism in the Soviet Union
Chair: Monika Woźniak (Institute of Philosophy of Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague)
- Stephan Ridlichsbacher (European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder))
Borders in Red: Managing National Diversity in the Early Soviet Union - Alexander Gogun (Freie Universität Berlin)
National Communism as the Way to the Global Socialist Federation
Stalin and the Birth of the Real-Socialistic System, 1944-1953 - Tilman Lüdke (University of Freiburg)
Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: From Pan-Islam to Pan-Turkism
15:45 – 17:45 Panel III: National Communism in Czechoslovakia
Chair: Petra Hudek (Institute of History of Slovak Academy of Sciences)
- Jakub Vrba (Charles University, Prague)
Czechoslovak German Communist: Between Sudeten German nationalism and Supraethnical Czechoslovakism - Jan Mervart (Institute of Philosophy of Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague)
Class versus nation in Czechoslovak Stalinism - Adam Hudek (Institute for Contemporary History of Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague)
Slovak National Communism in the Normalization Era - Matej Ivančík (Commenius University, Bratislava)
Unfortunately, Communist Mafias Are Undefeatable, As Yet.“ National Communism in Post-Socialist Slovakia through the Liberal-Democratic Gaze
17:45 – 18:00 Closing remarks