The Revival of the Left in the Balkans: Counter-Hegemonic Activism and Ideas that Fueled It
Thursday, 26 June, 2025 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

This seminar explores how the critical discursive breakthrough of social movements in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia disrupted the post-socialist transitional status quo.

Habsburg Bosnia-Herzegovina as a Legal Laboratory for the State of Emergency
Thursday, 12 June, 2025 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

This seminar will explore how military leadership in the Habsburg Empire increasingly turned their attention to the legal and administrative regime in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the years before the First World War.

Einmal Schengen und zurück? Europäische Einigung, nationale Souveränität und das Ringen um eine funktionale Migrationspolitik
Thursday, 05 June, 2025 19:00 - 20:30 CEST

Anlässlich des 30. Jahrestages der Umsetzung des Schengen-Abkommens und des EU-Beitritts Österreichs nimmt diese Podiumsdiskussion die langfristigen und gegenwärtigen Dynamiken der europäischen Grenz- und Migrationspolitik kritisch in den Blick.

Europäische Un/Ordnungen, die Politik der Grenzen und die Rolle von Bildern und kulturellen Narrativen
Thursday, 05 June, 2025 17:50 - 18:45 CEST

Projektpräsentation und Paneldiskussion mit Christina Hainzl (Universität für Weiterbildung Krems) und Peter Techet (Institut für den Donauraum und Mitteleuropa, IDM).

Researching Migration and Transformation: Insights from RECET
Thursday, 05 June, 2025 17:00 - 17:50 CEST

Migration and transformation as topics matter deeply in the contemporary world as migration, mobility, and all forms of exchange that they cause affect not only those who migrate but societies as a whole. At RECET, scholars affiliated with the Research Group “Migration and Transformation” (funded by the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies) aim to…

Migration und Menschenrechte: gängige Mythen und wahre ethische und politische Herausforderungen
Thursday, 05 June, 2025 15:00 - 17:00 CEST

Politische und mediale Narrative über Migration malen oft ein düsteres Bild, das nur wenig mit den tatsächlichen Fakten zu tun hat. Was sagt uns der Stand der Migrationsforschung über aktuelle und zukünftige Migrationstrends?

Walking Tour: Vienna as a Transit Hub for Refugees During the Cold War
Thursday, 05 June, 2025 10:00 - 11:30 CEST

The city of Vienna was a major transit hub for refugees from state-socialist countries on their way west during the Cold War. We will explore this fascinating history from multiple angles on our walking tour through the city center.

Unsere Bühne! Unsere Stadt? – gastarbajteri und ihr Wien
Wednesday, 04 June, 2025 19:00 - 20:30 CEST

Wien ist eine Stadt der Migration. Zuwanderung und Vielheit prägen sie. Unermüdlich setzen sich künstlerische und aktivistische Stimmen dafür ein, diese politische und gesellschaftliche Realität Wiens sichtbar zu machen. In Literatur, Liedern und Lyrics, in geplanten Denkmälern und stattfindenden Performances sowie in engagiertem Aktivismus und Kampf um…

Jüdisch, Deutsch, Russisch? Postsowjetische Migration in Deutschland und Österreich
Wednesday, 04 June, 2025 17:00 - 19:00 CEST

Wie sieht das Leben der postsowjetischen Juden und Deutschen heute aus, gut 35 Jahre nach dem Ende der Sowjetunion? Welche Herausforderungen, Chancen und Lebensbedingungen prägen ihre Erfahrungen heute? Wie beeinflussen Identitätsfragen ihr Leben und ihre Interaktionen innerhalb dieser Gesellschaften?

Migrant Literature as Transnational Literature in Women's Fiction
Wednesday, 04 June, 2025 15:00 - 16:45 CEST

Migrant literature and transnational literature are seemingly interchangeable concepts, with highly different political connotations. Migrant experience is heavily gendered and is shaped by other elements of one’s identity. In this panel, two writers, who approach migration and a transnationalism in their writing, and two scholars of migration and…

Diasporic Voices, Challenges, and Activism
Wednesday, 04 June, 2025 13:00 - 15:00 CEST

This roundtable discussion will provide embedded insights from and about diasporic realities in Europe, with a particular focus on the voices and challenges of migrants and the diasporic communities.

Walking Tour "Gastarbeit in Ottakring"
Wednesday, 04 June, 2025 10:00 - 11:30 CEST

In den 1960ern und 1970ern kamen tausende Menschen aus Jugoslawien und der Türkei zum Arbeiten nach Österreich. Dieser bedeutenden Migrationsbewegung widmen wir uns aus der Sicht der Migrant:innen bei einem Rundgang durch Ottakring in Zusammenarbeit mit der Gruppe „Gehörgänge“ und begleitet durch den Zeitzeugen Ali Gedik.

Migrantische Stimmen in den (Sozialen) Medien
Tuesday, 03 June, 2025 18:30 - 20:00 CEST

Redaktionen der “klassischen” Medien – egal ob Print, TV oder Radio - bilden die Vielfalt der Einwanderungsgesellschaft nach wie vor kaum ab. Migrantische Perspektiven sind somit häufig unterrepräsentiert. Wie schaffen es die Stimmen von Migrant*innen in die Öffentlichkeit?

Humanitarismus versus Pragmatismus. Flüchtlings- und Migrationspolitik im 21. Jahrhundert
Tuesday, 03 June, 2025 16:30 - 18:15 CEST

Im Spannungsfeld zwischen pragmatischen Erwägungen zu Fachkräftemigration etc. einerseits und den humanitären Imperativen der Flüchtlingspolitik andererseits vollzieht sich die Suche nach Möglichkeiten, Migration zu regulieren. Wie viel Regulierung ist in liberalen Gesellschaften und Demokratien aber möglich und um welchen Preis?

Romani History and Culture: Migration, Resilience, and Transformations
Tuesday, 03 June, 2025 14:45 - 16:15 CEST

Carol Silverman and Mirjam Karoly will discuss how Roma, Europe's largest ethnic minority of approximately 12 million, illuminate the themes of migration, transformation, and resilience. Who are Roma and why is their history relevant today?

RECET History and Social Sciences Festival "Migration and Transformation"
Tuesday, 03 June, 2025 13:00 - 05 Jun, 19:00 CEST

Migration is an integral feature of human societies in the past and present. At the same time, it has been the subject of controversial discussions and political debates and campaigns at various times, including today. This is where this year’s RECET History and Social Science festival comes in. Over three days, important voices from the academy, art,…

Globalization, Deglobalization and Migration. Mechanisms of Social Transformation with a Special Focus on Eastern Europe.
Tuesday, 03 June, 2025 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

The development of migration processes and the related debates over migration have become key issues in contemporary social transformation. The talk will argue that we have to analyze material and discursive processes together in order to understand migratory changes and discourses on migration within the framework of social change and historical dynamics.

Reproductive Rights in Times of Transformation. Ireland and Poland, 1980s-1990s
Thursday, 22 May, 2025 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

The economic transformation of the Republic of Ireland into a ‘Celtic tiger’ and that of Poland into a market economy are primarily associated with the 1990s. However, recent studies show that these developments already began in the 1980s, so that it is sometimes possible to speak of the “long 1980s” - even if the political changes in East-Central Europe in…

Book Presentation: Institutional Genes. The Origins of China’s Institutions and Totalitarianism
Monday, 19 May, 2025 14:30 - 16:00 CEST

This book explores the origins and evolution of China’s institutions and communist totalitarianism in general. Contemporary China's fundamental institution is communist totalitarianism. Introducing the concept of Institutional Genes (IGs), the book examines how the IGs of Soviet Russia merged with those of the Chinese imperial system, creating a durable…

Historian in the Age of Social Media and Disinformation
Thursday, 08 May, 2025 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

In the field of Eastern European History, the question whether historians have a responsibility to engage in public and political discussions have become particularly urgent after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Can we afford silence in face of the dismantling of democracy in the United States and the rise of anti-democratic parties and movements in…

Dismantling Authoritarian Rule in Poland
Thursday, 03 April, 2025 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

In our regular Transformative Salon format Polish-American historian Jan T. Gross and Magda Szcześniak reflect on how authoritarian rule can be dismantled in Poland.

Can a Mésalliance Exist in Socialism? Upward Mobility and Cross-Class Relationships in the Polish People's Republic
Thursday, 03 April, 2025 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

Although they may seem far apart, the social processes of upward mobility and partner selection are in fact very much intertwined. Whereas endogamy is a well-known method of safeguarding the borders of class, marrying into a family of higher social status has always been recognized as an efficient tactic of social climbing for both men and women. Drawing on…

Book Discussion: Monuments and Territory
Thursday, 27 March, 2025 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

From the very first days of their large-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian invaders have made exceptional efforts to interact with the war memorial landscape of the newly occupied territories. This landscape consists of tens of thousands of monuments, mostly in small towns and villages, commemorating the Second World War and other…

European Strategies for Strengthening Social Partnership and Labour Rights
Tuesday, 25 March, 2025 10:00 - 15:00 CEST

Social justice is a key term for political struggle, a core concept of labour movements and a reference point for people’s activism. This roundtable discussion invites scholars, experts, and policymakers to consider what advancing social justice means in the practical realm.

Discussion: Demise of a Dream? Social Justice Past and Present
Monday, 24 March, 2025 19:00 - 20:30 CEST

A joint event of the RECET-hosted MSCA research project WORK-AGE-JUST and the Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue.

History Doesn’t Travel in One Direction: Real Existing Postsocialism in Eastern Europe
Thursday, 20 March, 2025 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

How have ordinary people been affected by, responded to, and made sense of the manifold changes in Eastern Europe over the past three decades? How have dominant narratives of transition obscured everyday experiences of this period and how have people, in turn, challenged these narratives?

CENTRAL Workshop "Mobility of People, Goods, and Ideas" (Part II)
Thursday, 13 March, 2025 10:00 - 14 Mar, 15:00 CEST

This second half of a two-part workshop in Vienna and Prague will bring together junior and senior scholars working on human movement & migration and on the circulation of goods and ideas to explore the development of new transnational perspectives on the history of Central and Eastern Europe in its global context. They will link up and deepen existing…

Believing Globally: Islamist Internationalism Between the Cold War and Decolonization
Wednesday, 12 March, 2025 16:15 - 17:45 CEST

How did Shi'a Islamist actors come to hold such grand ambitions for themselves? In this talk, Prof. Dr. Timothy Nunan draws on research in new Persian- and Arabic-language materials to show how decolonization and the Cold War shaped the trajectory of Shi'a Islamism.

MUGA – Make us great again. Wie die radikale Rechte durch internationale Zusammenarbeit immer stärker wird
Thursday, 06 March, 2025 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Radikal rechte, nationalistische Bewegungen vernetzen sich zunehmend auch international – das gilt für gewalttätige Akteure und die Vernetzung im Internet, aber auch für parlamentarisch aktive politische Akteure wie Parteien und Vorfeldorganisationen.

Online Training: Digging through the Scraps. An Introduction to Archival Research on Labour and Migration in Southeast Europe
Thursday, 20 February, 2025 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

As part of the activities of the project RETLAMI-SEE at the University of Banja Luka, the project consortium invites interested researchers to participate in an online training aimed at preparing early career scholars for archival research on labour and migration in Southeastern Europe.

Workshop: The State-Owned Enterprise as Site of Solidarity and Conflict
Thursday, 13 February, 2025 08:30 - 14 Feb, 18:00 CEST

The workshop aims to bring together scholars interested in international, national, and local histories, seeking to reorient our understanding of Cold War economies and labour regimes away from a picture of division.

From bourgeoisie to intelligentsia: The evolution of the identity of the Polish Jewish elite over the “long 20th century” in the context of geo-economic changes
Thursday, 30 January, 2025 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

The talk will attempt to interpret the evolution of the Polish Jewish elite, with particular emphasis on the elite circles of Warsaw, over the course of the “long 20th century”. The key point of reference for the analysis will be the changing political, cultural, and, above all, economic relations in the Polish lands and the resulting changes in the…

10 Years of War in Europe: Russian Threat to the European Union and Austria
Friday, 24 January, 2025 16:30 - 19:15 CEST

Discussion examining Russia's expansionist ideology and its increasing threat to European stability, with a particular emphasis on Ukraine and Austria's strategic position in a potential global conflict.

The Concept of the “Civilizing mission” as a Cultural Transfer in the 19th-Century: the Case of Austria and Galicia
Thursday, 23 January, 2025 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

The aim of this seminar is to show how the concept of the civilizing mission – once used in the colonial politics of Western empires – was transferred in various ways to another geographical area, namely in East-Central Europe: both as an intellectual idea and as a tool for legitimizing political power.

Kultureller Kahlschlag: die Slowakei, die Niederlande und die Zukunft europäischer Kulturpolitik
Thursday, 09 January, 2025 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Eine rechtsextreme Ministerin treibt in der Slowakei den kulturellen Kahlschlag voran. Tausende gehen dagegen auf die Strasse. Ministerin Martina Šimkovičová ist ein Symptom eines gesamteuropäischen, eines globalen Problems. Wie es der österreichische Reporter Martin Pollack klar formulierte: „Was derzeit an kulturpolitischem Kahlschlag in der Slowakei…

In Search of the Good Life: Post-Soviet Communities in Osnabrück
Thursday, 12 December, 2024 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

This seminar examines the lifeworlds of people from the former USSR in a Osnabrück, Germany. The focus of the analysis is on the reconstitution of community and the shaping of individual lives after emigration. In which local, translocal and transnational networks are they embedded? How do these people conceive of a “good life” in their new place?

CENTRAL Workshop "Mobility of People, Goods, and Ideas" (Part I)
Thursday, 12 December, 2024 10:00 - 13 Dec, 15:00 CEST

This first half of a two-part CENTRAL workshop in Vienna and Prague will bring together junior and senior scholars working on human movement & migration and on the circulation of goods and ideas to explore the development of new transnational perspectives on the history of Central and Eastern Europe in its global context.

Ungarische Planwirtschaft in der Weltwirtschaft: Einbettung ungarischer Wirtschaftsentwicklung in den Globalisierungsprozessen
Tuesday, 10 December, 2024 13:00 - 14:45 CEST

Der Vortrag untersucht die relative Bedeutung der Beziehungen des sozialistischen Ungarn zum Globalen Süden und zum Westen. Was erwarteten sich die ungarischen Eliten von diesen Beziehungen? Welche Strategien verfolgten sie? Wie nahmen sie die globale Position Ungarns wahr?

Workshop: Teaching with Texts and Contexts across Disciplines, about East Central Europe
Friday, 06 December, 2024 10:00 - 12:30 CEST

What is the potential of the new book "Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights. East Central Europe, Second Half of the Twentieth Century" to change perceptions and approaches to Central, East Central and Southeast Europe? How can this book fit into the ways experts in the field think about gender and women’s history in Central,…

"They lived in a period of constant revolution" – Feminism and Socialism from the Baltics to the Balkans
Thursday, 05 December, 2024 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

The Trasformative Salon will entail the book launch of ”Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights, East Central Europe, Second Half of the Twentieth Century” (CEU Press 2025), accompanied by a discussion

Workshop: Women’s History and the History of Feminist Political Thought in East Central Europe – Sources, Translations, Methods, and Approaches from Intellectual to Gender History
Thursday, 05 December, 2024 13:30 - 16:00 CEST

The editors of "Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights. East Central Europe, Second Half of the Twentieth Century" will offer an introduction into the methodology of preparing the book, and, with the invited speakers, present parts of it.

Rebuilding Poland and the world: Polish communist women and their (trans)national emancipation efforts, and how to write about them today
Thursday, 14 November, 2024 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

Who were the communist women who designed and implemented the socialist project of women’s emancipation not only in Poland, but around the world? How did they conceptualize emancipation?

Does Eastern Europe generate ideas? On the history of global developmental economics
Thursday, 07 November, 2024 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

This talk recovers the unique intellectual ferment of the Great Depression era in Poland to show how histories of “elsewhere”–peripheral, rural, and poor nation-states–moved to the center of global affairs and social science.

The 6th Workshop on Business History in Central and Eastern Europe
Thursday, 24 October, 2024 08:00 - 25 Oct, 18:30 CEST

Supported by the European Business History Association-EBHA

International Conference: Thinking Beyond the 'Soviet Jewry' Narrative. Localism, Diversity, and Subjective Experiences of Jews in the Soviet Republics under Late Socialism
Wednesday, 09 October, 2024 10:00 - 10 Oct, 18:00 CEST

The discursive construct of “Soviet Jewry," defined as a homogeneous unit, was shaped to a significant extent by the Soviet regime’s centralistic features, including its nationalities policies. We are interested in exploring the porous borders of Soviet (non)Jewishness, and the character and intensity of Jewish-non-Jewish encounters in the Soviet…

Left Wing Activism. A Deep Historical Perspective
Thursday, 03 October, 2024 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

The Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET) at the University of Vienna and the Research Platform "Transformations and Eastern Europe" invite to their regular Transformative Salon on 7 March 2024 at 7 PM, this time with Maria Todorova (Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign).

Buchpräsentation und Podiumsdiskussion: „Österreich und Tschechien als Immigrationsländer”
Thursday, 26 September, 2024 19:00 - 20:30 CEST

Der neueste Band der „Schriftenreihe der Ständigen Konferenz österreichischer und tschechischer Historiker zum gemeinsamen kulturellen Erbe“ (SKÖTH) lenkt den Blick auf Österreich und die Tschechische Republik als Einwanderungsländer und bietet einen Überblick über die Arbeitsmigration seit dem Habsburgerreich bis in die Zeit nach 1989 und dem Beitritt…

Workshop "Designer Tools for Researchers. Simple but Powerful Practices to Stand Out"
Monday, 24 June, 2024 13:00 - 16:30 CEST

Producing clear and engaging visual communication is key to standing out as a professional scientist and effectively sharing your research process and findings. It is a skill set that is increasingly valuable in academia and industry. Roman Doroshenko's workshop covers essential tools and principles that with practice, will significantly enhance your visual…

Coming soon: New doctoral network at RECET
Saturday, 22 June, 2024 16:00 - 15:50 CEST

We are thrilled to announce that starting September 2024 we will host a new doctoral network under the FWF doc.funds scheme. RECET will be welcoming 7 new PhD students who will work under the umbrella topic "Dynamics of Change and Logics of Transformation".

Photographing the U.S. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: American War Photographer Ben Brody in Conversation with Oksana Sarkisova
Saturday, 15 June, 2024 18:00 - 19:30 CEST

From 2003 to 2008, Ben Brody photographed the Iraq war as a soldier assigned to make visual propaganda for the U.S. military. When he left the army, he went to Afghanistan on his own as a civilian to continue his work on his own terms.

Embedded: The Military as a Patron of the Arts
Friday, 14 June, 2024 10:00 - 15 Jun, 18:00 CEST

This workshop aims to explore the structure and effects of military patronage of the arts across all times and places. It seeks to go beyond the time-honored theme of “the artist in uniform” to ask how relationships between militaries and artists are formed and how they influence artistic styles, themes, and tastes.

Tracing European Freedom of Movement in National Labor Markets
Thursday, 13 June, 2024 13:15 - 14:45 CEST

This seminar will examine how governments, social actors, multilateral institutions, and NGOs worked to bridge the goals of broad regional mobility and deep social protection as free movement was implemented in the 1960s.

Eastern Europe Before Transition: Digitisation of data and analysis of CESEE’s command economies
Tuesday, 11 June, 2024 09:00 - 18:00 CEST

In order to better understand the industrialisation spurt and later the (financial) crisis and collapse of the command economies of Central, East and Southeast Europe (CESEE) as well as the applied economic policy mix before and during their transition to market economies, including the decisive role of initial conditions, we will digitise and publish online…

Wie wir uns die Zukunft zurückholen
Thursday, 06 June, 2024 17:00 - 18:45 CEST

In seinem Buch Wie wir uns die Zukunft zurückholen (Brandstätter Verlag, 2024) entwirft Rudi Anschober eine optimistische Vision der nahen Zukunft: Der Autor wird in diesem Vortrag die Thesen seines Buches präsentieren und diskutieren. 

Climate Activism Left and Right
Thursday, 06 June, 2024 15:00 - 16:45 CEST

Can there be “too much” activism? Will climate activists start their “long march through the institutions”? This panel brings together scholars, activists and journalists to discuss these and other issues.

Utopian Thinking and the Transformation of Environment
Thursday, 06 June, 2024 13:00 - 14:15 CEST

In this panel we look at past and future utopias, the solutions for regeneration that they promise, the challenges that they envision and ask if the time of the grand utopia is over. Shall we reconsider the very premises of utopian thinking and find new ways to deal with the unruliness of nature? 

Nachhaltigkeit unternehmen. Entrepreneurship im Zeichen grüner Transformation
Wednesday, 05 June, 2024 19:00 - 20:45 CEST

Vom burgenländischen Neusiedler See bis in die Hochtäler der Tiroler Alpen: Längst machen zunehmende Wetteranomalien deutlich, dass die globale Erwärmung Österreichs vielfältige Lebensräume gravierend verändert und damit auch seine Wirtschaft maßgeblich beeinflusst – von der Industrie bis zum Gastgewerbe.

From the Cold War to a Warm(ing) War? East/West divides in climate policies and popular attitudes
Wednesday, 05 June, 2024 17:00 - 18:45 CEST

Climate change and environmental degradation are problems that affect all of Europe, yet the continent seems divided over the nature of the issue and the necessary instruments to mitigate and adapt. This panel brings together experts from the social sciences, from policymaking, and from civil society, to discuss this question and its implications for the…

Nuclear Energy: From Dark Past to Green Future?
Wednesday, 05 June, 2024 15:00 - 16:45 CEST

What role can nuclear energy play in green transformation, if any? In this roundtable discussion, the panelists analyze the paradoxes that emerged from the roll-out of nuclear energy production on the one hand, and its governance on the other.

Protect, Transform, Question? Feminist Political Thought and Environmentalism in Long-Term Perspective
Wednesday, 05 June, 2024 13:00 - 14:45 CEST

The panel brings together scholars working on ecology and environmental activism in history, anthropology, international relations and cultural studies, from a feminist perspective. How are the labors of “green transformation(s)” gendered? And what kind of gendered political demands, tensions and cooperations might such transformations bring in a global…

Cities & Climate: Rethink, Revolutionize, Survive
Tuesday, 04 June, 2024 17:00 - 18:45 CEST

It is in cities that our future can be decided. This panel joins scholars with practitioners of urban planning and climate transformation to discuss local perspectives and solutions for a global problem.

Sustaining the Desire for the Social: Challenging Environmental Violence through Art-Activist Practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Tuesday, 04 June, 2024 15:00 - 16:45 CEST

As a counter-narrative to the dominant environmental violence, this keynote draws on recent art-activist production in Bosnia and Herzegovina and discusses and analyzes the extent to which it intervenes in the socio-environmental dynamics of ethnic authoritarian governance.

RECET History and Social Sciences Festival "Green Transformations"
Tuesday, 04 June, 2024 14:30 - 06 Jun, 20:00 CEST

In this third history and social sciences festival, high-ranking voices from science, politics, civil society, art and culture will examine these various dimensions of and debates on "green transformations". These lectures, debates and panel discussions will be accompanied by an attractive cultural program.

Foreign Aid and State Building in Interwar Romania: In Quest of an Ideal
Thursday, 23 May, 2024 13:15 - 14:45 CEST

The decades following the First World War were a period of political, social, and economic transformation for Central and Eastern Europe. The seminar looks at the role of foreign aid in Romania between 1918 and 1940, as it explores the interrelation between state building and non-governmental humanitarianism in the interwar period.

Methods of Making Culture and History Together
Friday, 17 May, 2024 10:30 - 12:00 CEST

In this keynote, Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll will give us insights into the methodological thoughts behind her work on colonial histories through contemporary art. Her art practice involves montaging words and images within films and installations that voice alternate histories through texts and performances.

Sweeping Inequality – Female Domestic Cleaners in the Gig-Economy of Central Eastern Europe
Thursday, 16 May, 2024 15:30 - 17:00 CEST

In contemporary capitalist societies the provisioning of domestic work has undergone and continues to undergo substantial transformations. These transformations include the externalization, commodification, and commercialization of socially reproductive labor. This keynote shows that practices encouraged by digitally mediated marketplaces can perpetuate the…

CENTRAL Workshop: Contemporary Cultural History 2.0. Nurturing Talents of Central and Central Eastern Europe
Thursday, 16 May, 2024 09:30 - 17 May, 16:30 CEST

The workshop aims to make a significant contribution to the field of contemporary cultural history by investigating both material and immaterial cultural practices, and exploring how meanings circulate in society.

Book Presentation: Nations Apart. Czech Nationalism and Authoritarian Welfare under Nazi Rule
Wednesday, 15 May, 2024 16:00 - 18:00 CEST

Nations Apart reconsiders the Nazi occupation of Bohemia and Moravia during World War II. Šustrová argues that the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia witnessed the unexpected expansion of the Czech welfare state, a process driven by local nationalisms and which, in turn, contributed, inadvertently to the stability of Nazi governance.

Antiosteuropäischer Rassismus in Deutschland: Geschichte und Gegenwart
Thursday, 02 May, 2024 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Gibt es in Deutschland Rassismus gegen Menschen aus dem östlichen Europa? Das auf diesem Salon vorgestellte gleichnamige Buch stellt ein Plädoyer für eine längst überfällige Osterweiterung der Rassismusdebatte dar.

The International Union of Students and Student Internationalism in the Cold War
Monday, 29 April, 2024 18:30 - 20:00 CEST

The International Union of Students - IUS - was one of the most influential student NGOs during the Cold War. This lecture offers an interpretation, reflecting the debate on the Global Cold War and the impact of decolonization, the role of the IUS and Prague (where it was based) in the transnational socialist network, and last but not least, also the history…

Book Presentation and Discussion: Red Tape. Radio and Politics in Czechoslovakia, 1945-1969
Wednesday, 24 April, 2024 16:00 - 17:30 CEST

In socialist Eastern Europe, radio simultaneously produced state power and created the conditions for it to be challenged. In Red Tape, Johnston reconstructs the relationship between radio reporters and the listeners who liked and trusted them while recognizing that they produced both propaganda and entertainment.

The liberal exodus? Political and social attitudes of Russian migrants
Thursday, 18 April, 2024 13:15 - 14:45 CEST

Flight and migration are part of the dramatic consequences of the escalation of the Russian war against Ukraine. Millions of people have been forced to leave their devastated homes in Ukraine, but hundreds of thousands have also fled their Russian homeland. This presentation will analyze rare survey data on social and political views of Russian migrants in…

20 Jahre EU-Osterweiterung – Wie steht es um die europäische Integration?
Thursday, 11 April, 2024 19:30 - 21:30 CEST

Zwanzig Jahre nach der großen Erweiterungsrunde von 2004 ist es an der Zeit eine Zwischenbilanz zu ziehen: wie hat sich die Osterweiterung auf die EU insgesamt ausgewirkt?

Dignity and Historical Injustice: An Albanian family's history
Thursday, 11 April, 2024 17:00 - 18:30 CEST

Lea Ypi's new book will follow the journey of a woman from Ottoman Salonica to a life under surveillance in post-war Communist Albania. The book explores the moral and political meanings of dignity, individual and collective, in connection to questions of truth and reconciliation, historical injustice and the relationship between fact and fiction.

The Origins of Entanglement: Volkswagen and China's Early Reform Era, 1978-1991
Thursday, 04 April, 2024 13:15 - 14:45 CEST

Understanding VW's intense focus on China requires delving into the history of its interactions with its largest global market. However, much remains unknown about the perspectives of decision-makers in Wolfsburg and Beijing regarding VW's entry into China.

Buchpräsentation: Flucht- und Flüchtlingsforschung. Handbuch für Wissenschaft und Studium
Wednesday, 20 March, 2024 18:00 - 20:00 CEST

Die Flucht- und Flüchtlingsforschung erlebt in den deutschsprachigen Regionen seit etwa 2015 einen Boom. Dieses Handbuch erschließt das Feld in seiner Breite und reflektiert zugleich kritisch den Forschungsstand.

Feminism and Marxism in Women’s Thought in Socialist Hungary and Self-Managing Yugoslavia
Tuesday, 19 March, 2024 17:00 - 18:30 CEST

The long debates between feminism and socialism about the place of class and gender in progressive politics were re-invigorated in unexpected ways by the Marxist renaissance and second wave feminism in various locations across East Central Europe.

Eröffnung der Ringvorlesung "Nordic Perspectives on Russia"
Thursday, 14 March, 2024 18:00 - 19:30 CEST

Die Ringvorlesung widmet sich den langen Linien der Geschichte der Nachbarschaft der nordischen Völker und Nationen und Russlands zwischen Konflikt und Koexistenz. Im Laufe des Semesters präsentieren führende Vertreterinnen und Vertreter der Geschichts- und Politikwissenschaften aus Norwegen, Schweden, Finnland und Estland ihre aktuellen Forschungen zur…

Everyday World Governance: Soviet Citizens and International Organizations During the Cold War
Thursday, 14 March, 2024 13:15 - 14:45 CEST

Highlighting the forgotten stories of Soviet citizens who contributed to the nuts-and-bolts operations and lesser-known activities of world governance, the talk will illustrate the UN’s importance for a group of Soviet "one-worlders," who used the world body to imagine and work for a better world amidst the realities of the Cold War.

Workshop: VWI invites RECET. Discourses on Fascism and Nazism
Tuesday, 12 March, 2024 14:00 - 18:00 CEST

In this public Workshop RECET scholars meet VWI fellows – four keynote presentations are commented and discussed and you are welcome to join us!

Shaping Revolutionary Memory: The Production of Monuments in Socialist Yugoslavia
Thursday, 07 March, 2024 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

In socialist Yugoslavia, there was a vast production of monuments dedicated to the antifascist People’s Liberation Struggle in the Second World War and the socialist revolution. Since the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, these monuments have been subject to various fates, from neglect and physical destruction to global fame generated by the high-modernist…

Post-Nazism – Postcolonialism – Post-Migration: The Current Debate on Holocaust Memory
Thursday, 15 February, 2024 17:00 - 19:00 CEST

Questions of historical politics and cultures of remembrance are once again in the focus of public attention. After the phase of its globalization and institutionalization, Holocaust memory seems to be subject to a far-reaching process of change.

Brotherly Strangers: Kenya’s & Zambia’s Relations with China 1949-2019
Wednesday, 31 January, 2024 18:00 - 19:30 CEST

Africa has become a major platform from which to analyse and understand China's growing influence in the global South. Yet, the impact of their historical relationship has been largely overlooked. Through the triangulation of the global Cold War, African history, and Chinese history, this study provides a detailed analysis of China-Africa relations in the…

Knowledgeable Youth: Open Forum with Dr. Zsófia Lóránd
Monday, 29 January, 2024 15:30 - 17:00 CEST

Together with Eurozine and Radio Orange, RECET is realizing its very first youth project: reaching out to Ukrainian refugee youngsters living in Vienna and introducing them to the world of academic research.

Book Presentation: Dynasty Divided. A Family History of Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism
Friday, 26 January, 2024 13:00 - 15:00 CEST

Fabian Baumann will present his book "Dynasty Divided. A Family History of Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism" published with Cornell University Press (2023).

Creolizing Transylvania. Between European Interimperiality and Global Coloniality
Thursday, 25 January, 2024 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

The talk counteracts the notion of Europe as a geographically, culturally, religiously, and racially coherent entity by focusing on one of Europe's subaltern formations, Transylvania. Its location on the European continent, yet in the rural periphery of several of Europe's imperial powers, renders it a unique candidate for the larger decolonial project of…

Knowledgeable Youth: Open Forum with Dominik Stegmayr
Tuesday, 23 January, 2024 15:30 - 17:00 CEST

Together with Eurozine and Radio Orange, RECET is realizing its very first youth project: reaching out to Ukrainian refugee youngsters living in Vienna and introducing them to the world of academic research.

Psychiatry of the ‘in-between’ world: Revolution and re-imagining the psyche in socialist Yugoslavia
Thursday, 18 January, 2024 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

This seminar explores the relationship between psychiatry and political ideology in the context of the Cold War and non-alignment. It focuses on the importance of revolution and ideas of radical reform for the development of socialist psychiatry in Yugoslavia.

„Ostöffnung“ als Chiffre von Mobilisierung
Wednesday, 10 January, 2024 12:00 - 14:00 CEST

Die „Ostöffnung“ bindet die Diskussion intensivierter Finanz- und Warenströme sowie die Mobilisierung von Menschen an einen Wendepunkt europäischer Geschichte und spannt diesen in einen selbstbezogenen Diskurs der österreichischen Nation ein: Die imperiale Projektion österreichischen Kapitals und österreichischer Eliten nach außen trug zu ihrer Erhöhung bei,…

Knowledgeable Youth: Open Forum with Dr. Agata Zysiak
Monday, 18 December, 2023 15:30 - 17:00 CEST

Together with Eurozine and Radio Orange, RECET is realizing its very first youth project: reaching out to Ukrainian refugee youngsters living in Vienna and introducing them to the world of academic research.

Combating Waste Colonialism in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Thursday, 14 December, 2023 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

Examining hazardous waste as a symptom of the never-ending transition of socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina into a so-called capitalist liberal democracy repoliticises the process of ‘wasting’ environments and human lives, revealing it as part and parcel of such transition.

The Relationship Between Europe's East and West: How Racist and How Colonial?
Tuesday, 12 December, 2023 16:00 - 17:30 CEST

Why call prejudice and discrimination against White Eastern Europeans racist? Would it not be better described just as xenophobia or regional intolerance? And what can be colonial about a region that belongs to the European Union, the historic heir of colonial privilege?

Russia Against Modernity
Thursday, 07 December, 2023 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Putin’s war is a “special operation” against modernity. The invasion has been directed against Ukraine, but the war has a broader target: the modern world of climate awareness, energy transition and digital labor. By trading oil and gas, promoting Trump and Brexit, spreading corruption, boosting inequality and homophobia, subsidizing far-right movements and…

Knowledgeable Youth: Open Forum with Martin Gumiela
Thursday, 30 November, 2023 15:30 - 29 Nov, 17:00 CEST

Together with Eurozine and Radio Orange, RECET is realizing its very first youth project: reaching out to Ukrainian refugee youngsters living in Vienna and introducing them to the world of academic research.

Knowledgeable Youth: Open Forum with Olena Yermakova
Wednesday, 29 November, 2023 15:30 - 17:00 CEST

Together with Eurozine and Radio Orange, RECET is realizing its very first youth project: reaching out to Ukrainian refugee youngsters living in Vienna and introducing them to the world of academic research.

Book Discussion: "Post-Imperial Possibilities: Eurasia, Eurafrica, Afroasia" by Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper
Tuesday, 28 November, 2023 16:00 - 18:00 CEST

A panel discusses "Post-Imperial Possibilities: Eurasia, Eurafrica, Afroasia" (Princeton University Press, 2023) with its authors Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper

Book Presentation and Discussion: Deserved. Economic Memories After the Fall of the Iron Curtain
Monday, 27 November, 2023 18:00 - 19:30 CEST

Presentation and Discussion of Till Hilmar's book "Deserved. Economic Memories After the Fall of the Iron Curtain". Drawing on in-depth interviews with as well as historical and comparative analysis of the breakdown of communism in Eastern Europe, "Deserved" sheds new light on the moral imagination of capitalism and the experience of economic change.

Migration – Rechtspopulismus – Autoritarismus: Herausforderungen für die offene Gesellschaft
Thursday, 23 November, 2023 18:00 - 24 Nov, 19:00 CEST

In dieser Tagung wollen wir uns an verschiedene Facetten des Nexus von Migration und Autoritarismus annähern – verbunden mit der Frage, ob es nicht restriktive Migrationspolitiken selbst sind, die autoritäre Tendenzen auch im Inland begünstigen.

Keynote: Hinter Mauern. Geschlossene Grenzen als Gefahr für die offene Gesellschaft
Thursday, 23 November, 2023 18:00 - 19:30 CEST

Grenzen sind nicht nur Hindernisse für Menschen, die sie von außerhalb überwinden wollen. Sie verändern auch die Gesellschaften, die sich abzuschotten versuchen.

Öffentlicher Teil der Konferenz "Migration – Rechtspopulismus – Autoritarismus: Herausforderungen für die offene Gesellschaft".

“Our Native Cinderella”: Balkan Bees within Global Economies of Breeding and Racialization
Thursday, 16 November, 2023 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

This lecture explores how fin-de-siècle beekeepers in the Yugoslav region imagined and attempted to carry out the racial reclamation of their local honeybees. It is ultimately part of a larger labor and environmental history of the post-Ottoman Balkans, which examines how transnational capital and new national states reshaped the relationship between local…

Book Launch: Kingdom of Barracks. Polish Displaced Persons in Allied-Occupied Germany and Austria
Wednesday, 15 November, 2023 18:30 - 20:00 CEST

Book Launch of "Kingdom of Barracks. Polish Displaced Persons in Allied-Occupied Germany and Austria" with Dr. Katarzyna Nowak – hosted at the Library of Contemporary History.

What’s next for Ukrainian refugees?: Lived experiences between state „welcome infrastructures“ and self-help ecosystems
Thursday, 09 November, 2023 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

The Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET) at the University of Vienna and the Research Platform "Transformations and Eastern Europe" invite to their regular Transformative Salon, Thursday, 9 November 2023, with Tanja Maier, Ruslana Koziienko and Jenia Yudytska.

Ukraine's Altered Landscapes: Losing and Recovering Alterity in the Face of War
Thursday, 09 November, 2023 09:45 - 10 Nov, 20:00 CEST

An interdisciplinary conference organized by the Ukraine in European Dialogue program at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) will be held at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna on 8-10 November 2023

Knowledgeable Youth: Open Forum with Lukas Becht
Tuesday, 07 November, 2023 15:30 - 17:00 CEST

Together with Eurozine and Radio Orange, RECET is realizing its very first youth project: reaching out to Ukrainian refugee youngsters living in Vienna and introducing them to the world of academic research.

Book Presentation: From Solidarność to Shock Therapy. How Capitalism Came to Poland
Monday, 06 November, 2023 14:00 - 15:30 CEST

Poland’s post-socialist transformation started way before the fall of communism. But how did the home of the unprecedented Solidarność movement turn into the pioneer of neoliberal shock therapy in Eastern Europe?

Keynote Lecture: Russia's rule on the newly occupied territories of Ukraine and the challenge of de-occupation
Thursday, 19 October, 2023 17:00 - 18:30 CEST

This keynote is part of the International Conference "600 Days of the All-Out War. Fighting for Freedom, Fighting for Democracy". The lecture is open to the public.

International Conference: 600 Days of the All-Out War. Fighting for Freedom, Fighting for Democracy
Wednesday, 18 October, 2023 09:00 - 20 Oct, 13:00 CEST

The Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 not only disrupted life in a 40+ million polity but also posed multiple challenges for adjacent states, problematizing the very foundations of the European – and a broader – order.

Book Presentation: The Shadow of the Empress. Fairy-Tale Opera and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy
Friday, 13 October, 2023 16:00 - 17:30 CEST

A beguiling exploration of the last Habsburg monarchs' grip on Europe's historical and cultural imagination.

Doing Business: A Cultural History of Late Socialist and Postsocialist Entrepreneurship
Thursday, 12 October, 2023 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

Although the 1990s in Eastern Europe are often associated with a business “boom”, entrepreneurial behaviours did not arrive overnight and have longer histories. This is the case also for Czechoslovakia. The seminar makes a case for studying private enterprise from a cultural history perspective, suggesting that this topic represents a useful prism for…

Opening Lecture: Radical Togetherness and Non-Binarism for Caring, Sharing and Survival
Wednesday, 11 October, 2023 17:00 - 19:00 CEST

Opening Lecture of the “Dubravka Ugrešić Lecture Series” and the ERC-funded project HERESSEE “The History of Feminist Political Thought and Women’s Rights Discourses in East Central Europe 1929-2001”

Triggerpunkte. Konsens und Konflikt in der Gegenwartsgesellschaft
Thursday, 05 October, 2023 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Von einer "Spaltung der Gesellschaft" ist immer häufiger die Rede. Auch in der Alltagswahrnehmung vieler Menschen stehen sich zunehmend unversöhnliche Lager gegenüber. So plausibel sie klingen mögen, werfen entsprechende Diagnosen doch Fragen auf ...

Sozialgeschichte mit hohem Impact: Kolloquium zu Ehren von Heinz-Gerhard Haupt
Saturday, 30 September, 2023 14:30 - 19:00 CEST

Kolloquium zu Ehren des Geburtstages von Heinz-Gerhard Haupt. Kooperation mit der LMU München und dem Institut für Geschichte (Universität Wien)

From a Multiethnic Empire to a World of Nation States: Central Europe, Crucible of World Order
Tuesday, 04 July, 2023 18:30 - 20:00 CEST

A panel discusses Central Europe's function as a laboratory of our current world order.

Central and/or Eastern Europe Within, Between and Beyond Borders
Friday, 30 June, 2023 17:30 - 19:00 CEST

Reflections on the geographical, political and cultural borders maintained in research in area studies remain crucial for overcoming the theoretical and methodological limits of our analyses. If it is the existence of a particular area that brings us together as scholars of history, politics, society, media, literature, arts and languages where do we start…

Between Love and Coercion. A Methodological Approach to the Queer Desire in the Holocaust
Thursday, 29 June, 2023 17:40 - 19:10 CEST

This keynote explores the intersection of queer and Holocaust history through the example of an enforced relationship between two women, guard and a prisoner in a small satellite camp of Gross Rosen in the final months of the Second World War.

Israel: Zwischen ethnischem Staat und gesellschaftlichem Pluralismus
Thursday, 22 June, 2023 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Israel lebt seit seiner Gründung mit religiösen, politischen und ethnischen Spannungen. Die rechts-religiöse Regierung, die Ende 2022 ins Amt kam, will diese nun zu ihren Gunsten auflösen. Seit Januar 2023 gehen hunderttausende Menschen auf die Straße. Natan Sznaider wird versuchen, die Proteste im Land theoretisch einzuordnen.

The Prediction Machine: Futurology and Neoliberalism in British Government
Thursday, 22 June, 2023 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

When the Von der Leyen Commission took office in December 2019, the new President, Ursula von der Leyen, pledged to put "Foresight" at the heart of her agenda for Europe. But what is Foresight, where did it come from, and how did it attain such political prominence?

Stress und die Transformation in der Tschechoslowakei/Tschechien 1960-2010
Wednesday, 21 June, 2023 18:00 - 19:30 CEST

Es ist zu einer verbreiteten Sichtweise geworden, dass "Stress" eine Herausforderung für unser aller Lebensführung darstellt. Wie konnte "Stress" - ein lange Zeit ausschließlich in medizinischen und psychologischen Fachkreisen verwendeter Begriff - eine solche Bedeutung erlangen? Anhand des Beispiels der sozialistischen Tschechoslowakei und der…

Keynote: Dual circulation, decoupling and dual use: Chinese policies' impact on Europe's de- and reindustrialization
Friday, 02 June, 2023 15:00 - 16:30 CEST

Three decades after the begin of China's process of opening up and reform and about a decade after China's accession to the WTO, the country's fast industrialisation process became hard to ignore. In European politics this is summarised in the acknowledgement of China as a „partner for cooperation and negotiation, an economic competitor and systemic rival".…

Double Keynote: Memory Perspectives on Industrial Transformation(s) in Eastern Europe & Rethinking the Periphery: Deindustrialization in the Global North and South
Wednesday, 31 May, 2023 17:30 - 19:00 CEST

Double Keynote presentation in the framework of the Conference "Deindustrialization and Reindustrialization Re-Connected"

Conference "Deindustrialization and Reindustrialization Re-Connected. Comparing Developments in the Global South and the Global North from the 1970s to the Present Day"
Wednesday, 31 May, 2023 17:00 - 02 Jun, 16:30 CEST

In the western world and in post-communist Eastern Europe, the history of deindustrialization has mostly been written as a story of loss and decline. However, the picture changes if we apply a global history perspective.

Un/Gleichheit Be/Schreiben: Über Armut und Reichtum
Friday, 26 May, 2023 17:30 - 19:00 CEST

Lesung und Diskussion: In dieser Literaturlesung und -diskussion wird unser angesehener Autor*innenkreis ihre Einsichten zur Darstellung sozioökonomischer Ungleichheiten in der Literatur teilen und prüfen, wie das Schreiben als starkes Instrument genutzt werden kann, um Ungleichheiten anzufechten.

Ungleichheit und Prekarität in der Gig-Economy
Friday, 26 May, 2023 15:45 - 17:15 CEST

Roundtable-Diskussion

Ungleichheit.Macht.(Hoch)Schule: (Un)Gleichheit im Bildungssystem
Friday, 26 May, 2023 14:00 - 15:30 CEST

Roundtable-Diskussion:

Transformation, Ungleichheit, Umverteilung: Welche Zukunft für den gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt?
Thursday, 25 May, 2023 17:00 - 18:30 CEST

Welche Auswirkungen hat zunehmende Ungleichheit auf den gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt? Stellt sie eine Gefahr für das demokratische System dar? Was können traditionelle sozialstaatliche Ausgleichsmechanismen noch leisten? Oder ist Chancengleichheit statt Umverteilung der Schlüssel zu mehr Gerechtigkeit in der Gesellschaft?

(In)Equality and the Climate Emergency. Transforming Activism, Politics, and Visions of the Future
Thursday, 25 May, 2023 15:00 - 16:45 CEST

Roundtable Discussion: The roundtable aims at engaging scholarly, literary, political, and activist perspectives in a dialogue on how questions of justice permeate their perceptions and practices of addressing the climate emergency.

Digital Technologies in China: Towards a More Just and Equal Society?
Thursday, 25 May, 2023 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

Lecture: Looking at the case of China, this talk looks at how digital technologies have transformed social, economic, and political life in China.

Inequalities of Rentier Capitalism: The Commons as the Future
Wednesday, 24 May, 2023 17:00 - 18:30 CEST

Keynote lecture: Reviving the commons and compensating the commoner for their deprivations should form the core of a new progressive politics grounded in ecological imperatives of our times.

Transformation and (In)Equality
Wednesday, 24 May, 2023 15:00 - 16:30 CEST

Roundtable discussion: How is inequality encoded in technologies, human bodies, literary canons, and economic systems? And what transformations have the concepts of equality and inequality undergone in East Central Europe and beyond over the past half century?

FREE ENTRY: RECET History and Social Sciences Festival "Transformations of (In)Equality"
Wednesday, 24 May, 2023 14:30 - 26 May, 20:30 CEST

In this second RECET History and Social Sciences Festival, high-profile voices from academia, politics, civil society, the arts and culture will discuss the multiple dimensions of and contestations surrounding (in)equality, and its many transformations over the past years and decades. These lectures, debates, and panel discussions will be accompanied by an…

Knowledgeable Youth: Open Forum with Dr. des. Fabian Baumann
Tuesday, 16 May, 2023 12:30 - 14:00 CEST

Third Open Forum in the Framework of the Project "Knowledgeable Youth – Vom Wissen der Jungen" – a RECET cooperation with Eurozine and Radio Orange, funded by the City of Vienna, Culture Affairs

Feeling Change: On writing an emotional history of Perestroika
Thursday, 11 May, 2023 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

Perestroika and transformation have to be considered as part of larger histories and re-integrated into the arguments and theories developed for late socialism and theories developed for late socialism. The Transformative Seminar is going to be a very first exploration of a new research project: a history of emotions relating to a ‘long’ Perestroika.

Roundtable: Zwischen Haltung und Zurückhaltung – Die Rolle der Humanities im öffentlichen Diskurs
Monday, 08 May, 2023 13:30 - 15:00 CEST

Wie finden humanitäres Engagement und Humanities zusammen, ohne sich einen „Bias“ vorwerfen lassen zu müssen? Wo ist eine Abgrenzung zwischen wissenschaftlicher Analyse und persönlicher Meinung – manchmal auch gegen die nachvollziehbaren Reflexe der Betroffenheit –nötig?

Humanität und Humanities: Herausforderungen für Wissenschaft und Kultur im Zeichen von Krieg und Krisen – Kulturerbe, Netzwerke, Kommunikation
Monday, 08 May, 2023 10:00 - 15:00 CEST

Welche Rolle kommt den Digital Humanities für Schutz und Sicherung von gefährdeten Kulturgütern zu? Wie funktioniert Kulturgutschutz zwischen politischer Willensbildung und praktischer Umsetzung? Inwieweit sollen sich Wissenschaftler:innen zu gesellschafts- und geopolitischen Fragen positionieren?

Shades of Agency: Choice, Survival, and Resistance of Jewish Women during the Holocaust in Transnistria
Wednesday, 03 May, 2023 16:00 - 17:30 CEST

Lilia Tomchuk’s PhD project examines the facets of Jewish women's agency in different contexts during the Holocaust in Transnistria, where Jews and Roma from Bessarabia and Bukovina were deported by Romanian authorities in 1941 and 1942 and where local Ukrainian Jews were brought from neighbouring localities.

Knowledgeable Youth: Open Forum with Dr. Rosamund Johnston
Tuesday, 02 May, 2023 12:30 - 14:00 CEST

Second Open Forum in the Framework of the Project "Knowledgeable Youth – Vom Wissen der Jungen" – a RECET cooperation with Eurozine and Radio Orange, funded by the City of Vienna, Culture Affairs

Menschenrechte hinter Gittern. Russland und Memorial im zweiten Jahr des Russischen Angriffskrieges
Friday, 28 April, 2023 14:00 - 16:00 CEST

Lecture format: on site + online.
Room: 2R-EG-07 (lecture hall of the Institute for Eastern European History).
Street address: Spitalgasse 2,  Campus of the University of Vienna, Hof 3.

Irina Scherbakowa, der Mitgründerin der Menschenrechtsorganisation Memorial (Friedensnobelpreis 2022), gelang es vor ihrer erwartbaren Verhaftung aus Russland zu fliehen.…

Wie enden Kriege? Einsichten der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung und ihre Bedeutung für den russisch-ukrainischen Krieg
Thursday, 27 April, 2023 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Was können wir aus der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung für ein mögliches Ende des russisch-ukrainischen Krieges lernen? Wie enden Kriege überhaupt und was sind die Schritte vom Ende der Kampfhandlungen bis hin zu einem nachhaltigen Frieden?

CENTRAL Workshop: Towards a Central European Doctoral School in Modern History
Monday, 24 April, 2023 13:00 - 25 Apr, 14:00 CEST

CENTRAL is a scientific network of five renowned Central European universities: Charles University in Prague, University of Warsaw, University of Vienna, ELTE Budapest as well as Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, which aims to promote Central Europe as a hub for academic excellence.

Science to Byt: The Urban Landscapes of Knowledge in the Cold War USSR
Thursday, 20 April, 2023 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

Following the outbreak of the Cold War, the Soviet political establishment became fascinated with visions of a universal scientific literacy to promote the progress to Communism. This task shaped the late Soviet city and, in essence, represented a response to one of the most important questions of modernity: how to use the urban environment to produce…

CENTRAL Workshop: Commodities, Trade, and Materiality in the Global Cold War
Wednesday, 19 April, 2023 12:00 - 20 Apr, 16:30 CEST

CENTRAL is a scientific network of five renowned Central European universities: Charles University in Prague, University of Warsaw, University of Vienna, ELTE Budapest as well as Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, which aims to promote Central Europe as a hub for academic excellence.

Knowledgeable Youth: Open Forum with Dr. Mischa Gabowitsch
Tuesday, 18 April, 2023 12:30 - 14:00 CEST

First Open Forum in the Framework of the Project "Knowledgeable Youth – Vom Wissen der Jungen" – a RECET cooperation with Eurozine and Radio Orange, funded by the City of Vienna, Culture Affairs

Disorder: Europe's Energy Reckoning
Thursday, 30 March, 2023 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

The depth of Europe’s present energy predicaments both in relation to fossil fuel energy and the energy transition have a long history going back to the beginning of the 20th century. Europe’s Net Zero 2050 goal represents an attempt to break free of its long-standing foreign energy dependency problem. How can this problem be eliminated?

Youth Workshop "Science Communication in Times of War"
Tuesday, 28 March, 2023 12:00 - 16:00 CEST

in the framework of the project "Knowledgeable Youth/Vom Wissen der Jungen" sponsored by the City of Vienna

Mining in Utopia? White Mineworkers on Zambia’s Copperbelt
Monday, 20 March, 2023 18:00 - 19:30 CEST

“Paradise for the proletariat” was the awe-struck assessment of one visitor to the mines in Central Africa in the 1950s. Miners drove Jaguar cars, sailed yachts, swam in Olympic-sized swimming pools, played polo and some even owned planes. Was paradise on earth really achieved? And how was it achieved?

PhD Student Workshop "Global Transformations of Political Economy From the 1970s"
Thursday, 16 March, 2023 09:30 - 18:30 CEST

The workshop brings together junior researchers from Berlin and Vienna in the fields of political economy and the global history of economic transition from the 1970s, especially outside the North Atlantic West.

Ghosts of War: Nazi Occupation and Its Aftermath in Soviet Belarus
Thursday, 09 March, 2023 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

How do states and societies confront the legacies of war and occupation, and what do truth, guilt, and justice mean in that process? The talk examines people’s wartime choices and their aftermath in Belarus, a war-ravaged Soviet republic that was under Nazi occupation during the Second World War.

Institutionalizing Indoctrination: Insights from the Romanian Case under Communism
Wednesday, 08 March, 2023 12:15 - 13:45 CEST

How should we think methodically—in theoretically and historically informed ways—about the institutionalization of indoctrination and propaganda? How should we conceptualize and theorize the social organization of ideology?

The Past We Deserve: Memory Policies and Politics in Poland
Thursday, 02 March, 2023 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Policies on the past have been a key component of the program and practice of the populist party ruling Poland since 2015. Polish "memory wars", which proved effective in mobilizing supporters, delegitimizing opponents, and justifying policies are unlikely to disappear.

What Do We Learn About War And Peace From Women International Thinkers?
Thursday, 26 January, 2023 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

In this talk, Prof. Sluga's focus is specifically on 20th century texts that address war and peace by women thinkers categorisable as both international and ‘European’, drawing in accessible Russian-language examples.

Contested Language Use in Ukraine
Thursday, 19 January, 2023 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

What does it mean for Ukrainian citizens to choose to speak Ukrainian or Russian? This talk will focus on the impact of the ongoing war on language, and the role of language in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Church, Memory and Nation-Building in Ukraine: Entanglements of Religious and National Identities on the crossroads of cultural memory (1991-2022)
Thursday, 15 December, 2022 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

Churches are often overlooked in the studies of memory. The study faces these imbalances and approaches churches as memory actors which are intensively engaged in the formation of memory culture that significantly contributes to re-shaping and re-negotiating of group identities.

The Façade of Solvency: Uncovering the Leverage of Paris Club Creditors in Rescheduling the Debts of the Global South (1980-2000)
Wednesday, 14 December, 2022 16:15 - 17:45 CEST

In the 1980s and 1990s, no less than 123 heavily indebted countries across the Global South embarked on 525 IMF adjustment programs to restructure their economies. Central to this financial leverage is the little-known Paris Club of official creditors, the world's only platform for rescheduling sovereign debt.

Academics in Exile
Thursday, 01 December, 2022 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Restrictions on academic freedom, persecution and armed conflict have forced many scholars into exile. Dr. Vera Axyonova and Dr. Florian Kohstall will present their book "Academics in exile: Networks, knowledge exchange and new forms of internationalization" and discuss with exiled scholars from Ukraine.

Guns and Globalization: Germany and the Illicit International Arms Trade since 1890
Thursday, 24 November, 2022 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

Germany has recently come under criticism for its reluctance to provide arms to Ukraine following the Russian invasion. For more than a century, however, Germany has more traditionally been criticized for its role in the proliferation of small arms trafficking around the world.

Book presentation: "RT in Europe and Beyond"
Wednesday, 23 November, 2022 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

The Russian state-controlled “Russia Today” media network was founded in 2005 and later emerged as the Kremlin’s primary instrument of influencing international audiences.

White But Not Quite: Racism By and Racism Against Eastern Europeans
Thursday, 17 November, 2022 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

Racism against Eastern Europeans reflects the long-standing imperial rivalry between the West and Russia. As such, it has played a part in the genesis and conduct of the current war in Ukraine.

Belarussische Frauen zwischen Revolution und Krieg (2020-22): geteilte Verantwortung, neue Allianzen und Schwesterlichkeit
Thursday, 03 November, 2022 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Inwieweit ist der Widerstand innerhalb von Belarus heutzutage möglich? Wie kämpfen die Hunderttausende wegen der politischen Verfolgungen geflohenen Belaruss*innen für die Demokratie in ihrem Land? Welche Rolle spielt dabei die feministische und Gender-Agenda?

Self-Selection of Ukrainian Refugees into Austria and Poland
Thursday, 13 October, 2022 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

Dr. Judith Kohlenberger analyzes how Ukrainian refugees arriving in Austria and in Poland differ in terms of their sociodemographic background, choice of host country as well as their return and stay intentions. Preliminary evidence suggests a highly self-selective migration from Ukraine to host countries, having implications for labor market integration.

Keynote: Putin’s Russia and the European Far Right
Tuesday, 11 October, 2022 14:15 - 15:45 CEST

The lecture shows how Moscow began to support far-right political forces to gain leverage on European politics and undermine the liberal-democratic consensus in the West. It discusses relations between Russia and the European far-right since the escalation of the Russian war against Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine Kennen:Lernen
Tuesday, 11 October, 2022 14:00 - 19:00 CEST

RECET presents its Ukraine Fellows and the programm for the upcoming semester

Gesellschaft im Krieg - Die Ukraine im Zeichen der russischen Aggression
Thursday, 06 October, 2022 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Wie leben Menschen im Krieg? Wie geht eine Gesellschaft mit der Allgegenwart von Gewalt und Tod und einer ständigen unkontrollierbaren Bedrohung um? Cathrin Kahlweit (Süddeutsche Zeitung) & Ivo Mijnssen (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) waren seit Beginn des russischen Angriffskriegs mehrfach in der Ukraine.

Book Launch: „European Socialist Regimes' Fateful Engagement with the West. National Strategies in the Long 1970s"
Tuesday, 20 September, 2022 17:00 - 18:30 CEST

The book focuses on a time when the socialist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe banked their hopes for prosperity and stability on enhanced relations with the West.

The Oxymoron: Economic Nationalism and the Global Corporations' Planetary Perspective
Monday, 19 September, 2022 17:00 - 18:30 CEST

We kindly invite you to the keynote speech of the workshop “Varieties of Economic Nationalism in Cold War Europe: Small State Responses to Economic Change, 1960s to 1980s”, which will be held by Prof. Bo Stråth.

Workshop “Varieties of Economic Nationalism in Cold War Europe: Small State Responses to Economic Change, 1960s to 1980s”
Monday, 19 September, 2022 08:00 - 20 Sep, 17:00 CEST

The aim of our workshop is to reassess the gradual shift from the Keynesianism of capitalism’s golden age to neoclassical economics and the liberalization of trade and capital flows, which extended from the 1960s to the 1980, from a small state perspective.

The Steelworkers are Disappearing: On the Transformation of the Industrial Sector in Germany and the USA Since the 1970s
Thursday, 30 June, 2022 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

The book project extends from the steel industry's boom years of the early 1970s to the crisis of the late 1970s and 1980s and concludes with the transformation following the end of the Cold War. The talk will focus on the social impact of the steel crisis and specifically address those disadvantaged by structural change and their scope for action.

CENTRAL Workshop: Socialist (Dis)Connections
Monday, 27 June, 2022 15:30 - 28 Jun, 18:15 CEST

We live in an increasingly globalized world—but the prehistory of this status quo outside the West is still not very well known.

Film screening: "The Other Side of Everything" with film director Mila Turaljic
Friday, 24 June, 2022 18:30 - 20:30 CEST

A locked door inside a Belgrade apartment has kept one family separated from their past for over 70 years. As the filmmaker begins an intimate conversation with her mother, the political fault line running through their home reveals a house and a country haunted by history.

Roundtable: Freedom and Unfreedom of Movement: Perspectives on Migration and Transformation
Friday, 24 June, 2022 16:30 - 18:00 CEST

For the vast majority of the world’s population, the global migration regime appears as a form of unfreedom. We will examine the contested meanings of migration, its multiple forms as well as the complex entanglements of freedom and unfreedom in global migration from historical, anthropological, and activist perspectives.

Discussion: Illiberal Economies? On Economic Freedom in Poland and Hungary
Friday, 24 June, 2022 14:30 - 16:00 CEST

Both Hungary and Poland have turned away from liberalism in recent years, at times openly embracing concepts like "illiberal democracy." In this discussion, two former central bankers in their countries will reflect upon the trajectory of economic liberalism in post-communist transformation, the current state of affairs, and the perspectives for the future.

Concert: Isama Zing
Thursday, 23 June, 2022 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Isama Zing is a Bratislava based producer, DJ, member of Mäss micro-collective and SHAPE platform affiliate. After turning to cello, voice and electronics at the early age of 15 he later moved to experimenting with the Warp-esque side of the 10s electronics to eventually arrive at a crossroads of club-deconstructions and experimental pop production. His…

Against the World: Anti-Globalism and “Freedom” in Interwar Europe
Thursday, 23 June, 2022 16:30 - 18:00 CEST

Focusing specifically on Central Europe, this talk explores the popular political and social movements on both the right and the left that sought to pause, reverse, or regulate globalization after the First World War. The “freedom” of movement was increasingly pit against freedom from dependence on imported foods and energy, freedom from the vacillations of…

Roundtable: China and the Chinese People’s Search for Freedom in the Long 20th Century
Thursday, 23 June, 2022 14:30 - 16:00 CEST

Within this multi-disciplinary discussion, scholars from Europe, Mainland China, and Hongkong will offer their insightful views on the development – as well as the lack of – of freedom in modern Chinese history over the past century. Each speaker will focus on one specific aspect ranging from economics, political ideology, to women and gender.

Film Screening: “Ukrainian Sheriffs” with film director Roman Bondarchuk
Wednesday, 22 June, 2022 20:00 - 22:00 CEST

In the country with the biggest police force in Europe, Ukraine, there is a lack of policemen in rural communities, therefore villagers of Stara Zburievka village have found a solution. They chose two local men - the smartest and the strongest - to take care of the public order.

Reading and Discussion: Freedom of Literature. Literature of Freedom
Wednesday, 22 June, 2022 18:30 - 20:00 CEST

What can literature do in times of war and crisis? How can literature as an artistic form and participant in discourse convey freedom? The event will focus on the role and difficulties of literature in contemporary society and discuss especially the situation in Ukraine and Poland.

Die Freiheit mobil zu sein. Grenzen und Grenzkontrolle im 21. Jahrhundert
Wednesday, 22 June, 2022 16:30 - 18:00 CEST

Der Vortrag beschäftigt sich mit dem Zusammenhang von Grenzen und Mobilität im Zeitalter der Globalisierung. Es wird gezeigt, dass Grenzen nach und nach zu machtvollen Sortiermaschinen umgebaut werden. Mehr denn je produzieren sie Mobilität und Immobilität gleichermaßen und wirken als Schwellen der Ungleichheit.

Roundtable: Freiheit in Zeiten von „Big Tech“ und „Big Data“
Wednesday, 22 June, 2022 14:30 - 16:00 CEST

Wo beginnt und endet die menschliche Freiheit in einer digitalen Welt? Was geschieht mit unseren Daten und was bedeutet das für uns? Welche neuen Ungleichheiten und Gefahren entstehen daraus? Um diese und weitere Fragen mit vielen Fallbeispielen wird sich die Diskussion drehen.

Reception with music by Andrej Prozorov
Tuesday, 21 June, 2022 18:30 - 20:00 CEST

Andrej Prozorov  (Ukrainian: Андрій Прозоров; own spelling: Andrej Prozorov; born in Odessa) is a Ukrainian saxophonist, composer, and respresentative of jazz and of world music. He gained prominence through his collaboration with Joe Zawinul.

Der Große Exodus: Über (Un-)Freiheit in Putins Russland
Tuesday, 21 June, 2022 17:00 - 18:30 CEST

Was passiert mit der russischen Gesellschaft? Wie reagieren die Menschen in Russland auf den Krieg gegen die Ukraine? Wird der seit Kriegsbeginn laufende Exodus liberal gesinnter Russen weitergehen?

Was Unfreiheit uns über Freiheit lehren kann
Tuesday, 21 June, 2022 15:00 - 16:30 CEST

Auf der Suche nach einem Begriff der Freiheit stoßen wir auf Erfahrungen von Unfreiheit. Zu einem politischen Freiheitsverständnis gehört es, dass nicht jede Empfindung beschränkter Freiheit für andere relevant werden muss. Der Eindruck von Unfreiheit steht aber am Anfang jeder tieferen theoretischen Beschäftigung mit Freiheit.

RECET First History and Social Sciences Festival "Transformations of Freedom"
Tuesday, 21 June, 2022 14:30 - 24 Jun, 20:30 CEST

Campus of the University of Vienna („Altes AKH“), Hof 1

Free entrance

Tagung "Körperkonzepte – Transformationen in slawischen Literaturen und Kulturen"
Thursday, 09 June, 2022 15:30 - 11 Jun, 13:30 CEST

Die Kulturveranstaltung „Körperkonzepte“ verbindet aktuelle wissenschaftliche Forschung mit kritischen Stimmen der jungen aktivistischen Kunst sowie mit Konzepten feministischer Kulturpolitik.

Family Life in Occupied Poland. The Testimonies of (Micro)Transformation
Thursday, 09 June, 2022 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

The lecture will discuss the possibilities of microhistorical research of the changes taking place within the Polish families under the German occupation in the peripheral territories.

Das ethnische Reich. Der gewaltsame Weg der deutschen Nationsbildung 800-1945
Thursday, 02 June, 2022 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Im Juni 2018 sagte Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Deutschland habe in den 1930er Jahren einen "einzigartigen Zivilisationsbruch" vollzogen. John Connelly möchte die Energien hinter diesem Bruch untersuchen.

Book presentation: Nested Nationalism Making and Unmaking Nations in the Soviet Caucasus
Wednesday, 01 June, 2022 15:00 - 16:30 CEST

In Nested Nationalism, Dr. Goff argues that there was a recursive relationship between majority and minority nationalisms in the Soviet Union. She critically examines asymmetries of power and processes of minoritization in the Soviet Union, and explains why history writing on this topic has proven so problematic in the past.

Ghost Projects & Their Malcontents
Thursday, 19 May, 2022 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

The lecture interrogates development schemes between Ghana and the Soviet Union - notably the Ghana Fishing Corporation, the Cotton Textile Factory, and the Soviet Geological Survey Team from 1957-1966. These engagements were supposed to highlight the benefits and opportunities of Soviet-partnership. However, these dreams never fully materialized.

History as War: Russia versus Ukraine
Thursday, 05 May, 2022 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Russia's perception of the past excludes Ukraine and Ukrainians from the list of sovereign actors of history. Ukrainian vision presupposes at least a millenial historical existence of Ukraine. The clash of these two visions has turned into an existential threat for Ukraine, and no less important - for Russia.

The Pictograph and a Pun: China’s Role as Rogue in Modern Intellectual Property
Thursday, 28 April, 2022 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

By examining two early legal cases featuring the alleged counterfeiting of Xiangmao Honey Soap, this talk shows how the Chinese language and linguistic practices in Chinese commercial culture often stymied Western manufacturers and import companies’ attempts to pursue and prosecute suspected Chinese copycats.

NACHGEFRAGT: Was wird aus der Ukraine?
Monday, 25 April, 2022 17:00 - 18:00 CEST

Ein Gespräch mit Osteuropahistoriker Philipp Ther und Außenpolitikredakteur Gerald Schubert (Der Standard) dazu, wie der Krieg gegen die Ukraine bislang verlaufen ist und was er für die Zukunft Europas bedeutet.

'Recivilising' Refugees: Displaced Eastern Europeans in the Heart of Divided Europe, 1945-1956
Wednesday, 20 April, 2022 15:00 - 16:30 CEST

Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies invites Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET), University of Vienna. Presentation by Dr. Katarzyna Nowak (VWI), commented by Prof. Dr. Claudia Kraft (RECET).

Ist die Erosion der Demokratie zu stoppen?
Thursday, 07 April, 2022 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Was sind die wichtigsten Herausforderungen für unsere Demokratien und wie sind sie entstanden? Sind die Bürger:innen unzufrieden weil sie mehr Demokratie wollen oder weil sie die autoritäre Alternative besser finden? Wie sollen wir unsere Demokratien stärker und resilienter machen?

Spreading Knowledge: American NGOs and Chinese Economic Reforms in the 1980s
Thursday, 24 March, 2022 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

This seminar explores the assistance that leading American non-governmental organizations (NGOs) provided to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) economic reforms during the 1980s. The talk will look at China-focused NGOs, such as the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, as well as at older philanthropic NGOs like the Ford and Rockefeller…

Joint seminar “A Soviet Laboratory of Reform: Economic Experimentation, Emancipation, and Transformation in the Estonian SSR”
Tuesday, 15 March, 2022 15:00 - 17:00 CEST

The joint seminar brings together scholars from three countries who approach Estonia’s privileged status within the strictly centralized Soviet economy from different angles to investigate the room for maneuver of local actors before and during perestroika and its impact on Estonia’s exceptionally successful post-Soviet economic performance.

In Camps: Vietnamese Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Repatriates
Thursday, 10 March, 2022 13:00 - 14:30 CEST

After the US war in Vietnam, close to 800,000 Vietnamese left the country by boat, survived, and sought refuge throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific. This is the story of what happened in the camps. In Camps raises key questions that remain all too relevant today: Who is a refugee? Who determines this status? And how does it change over time?

Testing Hungary's Illiberal Democracy
Thursday, 03 March, 2022 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

On April 3, 2022 Hungarian voters will get a chance to re-elect FIDESz and PM Orban for his fourth consecutive term. This time around several opposition parties selected an opponent, Péter Márki-Zay, in a democratic primary to challenge FIDESz's overbearing majority. Márki-Zay's vision for a post-2022 Hungary includes a promise of restoring constitutional…

CENTRAL-Workshop "Mapping the Scenes: Digital Humanities in Cultural Studies in Central and Central Eastern Europe"
Thursday, 17 February, 2022 12:00 - 18 Feb, 18:00 CEST

This workshop brings together a multidisciplinary team of art historians, literary scholars, performance and media studies scholars and historians. It will provide an opportunity to map the digital research landscape in Cultural Studies and Cultural Heritage Studies in the various countries of Central and Central Eastern Europe.

Conference: Migration and Everyday Life of (Post-)Soviet Diaspora Nationalities
Thursday, 03 February, 2022 14:30 - 05 Feb, 13:30 CEST

Online Conference of the Research Network Ambivalences of the Soviet: Diaspora Nationalities between Collective Experiences of Discrimination and Individual Normalization, 2020-2023.

Europe vs. Europe: Social, Neoliberal and Industrial Europe
Thursday, 27 January, 2022 13:15 - 14:45 CEST

In this seminar, Professor Warlouzet will talk about his upcoming book, to be published in January 2022 in French and entitled "Europe vs. Europe. Social, neoliberal and industrial Europe". It deals with the history of European economic and social policies since 1945.

Performing Citizenship in Post-1991 Ukraine: Between ‘Street Politics’ and ‘Audience Democracy’
Thursday, 20 January, 2022 13:15 - 14:45 CEST

The talk exposes the political dynamic in post-1991 Ukraine through the concept of “performative citizenship” (Isin 2017) that presumes a political struggle claiming for rights rather than a pre-existing institutional design providing them.

The Temporal Life of States: Central Europe and the Transformation of Modern Sovereignty
Thursday, 13 January, 2022 13:15 - 14:45 CEST

Drawn from Natasha Wheatley's book manuscript of the same title, this talk shows how the serial remaking and unmaking of empire in Central Europe placed extraordinary pressure on sovereignty’s two central fictions – its singularity and its immortality.

What really was the Cold War?: Imagined Reality, Social Mechanism, Ordinary People's War
Thursday, 16 December, 2021 13:15 - 14:45 CEST

Masuda Hajimu's "Cold War Crucible" is an inquiry into the peculiar nature of the Cold War. It examines not only centers of policymaking but seeming aftereffects of Cold War politics during the Korean War: suppression of counterrevolutionaries in China, the White Terror in Taiwan, the Red Purge in Japan, and McCarthyism in the United States.

Über Zäune und Mauern? Zur Gegenwart und Zukunft des europäischen Migrationsregimes
Thursday, 02 December, 2021 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Das europäische Migrationsregime steht unter Druck. Zuletzt stellten die Mobilitätsbeschränkungen in Folge der Covid19-Pandemie die innereuropäische Bewegungsfreiheit massiv in Frage. Welche politischen Herausforderungen ergeben sich daraus für die Europäische Union?

IMF Adjustment Programs: Tracking the Shift from Stabilization to Structural Adjustment, 1969-1986
Wednesday, 24 November, 2021 16:15 - 17:45 CEST

Scholars generally locate the origins of structural adjustment programs in the early- or mid-1980s. But the IMF management and staff began explicitly using the term in 1973 and then succeeded in cultivating a consensus among IMF members in favor of structural adjustment programs in 1976.

Rediscovering Empowering Historical Legacies on the EU’s Free Movement of Persons, 1985-2015
Thursday, 18 November, 2021 13:15 - 14:45 CEST

This presentation will address the transnational roots, debates and conditions for the diachronic implementation of a game-changing policy: The EU’s Free Movement of Persons. Its main objective is to highlight the revealing value of critical historical analysis in this field and the normative legacies on human mobility rights in the European integration…

Childhood in Times of Political Transformation in the 20th Century
Thursday, 11 November, 2021 13:15 - 14:45 CEST

The talk uses the lens of childhood and youth to provide an unconventional diachronic exploration of the relationship between political crises, the longer processes of political and social transformation and their implications for the lives of the young.

Conference: "Russian Germans on Four Continents: Global History and Present"
Wednesday, 10 November, 2021 17:00 - 12 Nov, 19:00 CEST

The history of Russian Germans is a history of intensive mobility across space and time. In this conference, we want to approach the global history and the global present of this particular group of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe from an interdisciplinary angle.

Bringing the State Back in Again? Views from Eastern Europe
Friday, 05 November, 2021 18:00 - 20:00 CEST

Theda Skocpol’s paper (1982) and the edited volume (1985) “Bringing the State Back in” became influential works in the field of state theory. More than thirty years later we will discuss what they failed to study, the varieties of the Soviet-type party-states, and what they could not yet study, the emerging states of the post-communist era.

Conference "Economic Collectivism: Old and New"
Thursday, 04 November, 2021 18:00 - 06 Nov, 13:00 CEST

Observing a considerable continuity of collectivist economic thought in Eastern Europe and China, the conference participants will ask whether remarkable new collectivist ideas have managed to strike roots in these societies during the past few decades.

Basic Income: A Capitalist Road to Communism?
Thursday, 04 November, 2021 18:00 - 20:00 CEST

The idea of paying a basic income to people, whether or not they are working or looking for work, is one of the most radical and controversial social policy proposals of our time. How can the unconditional basic income transform capitalism and does it lead to communism, as many opponents of the idea are arguing?

On Democracy in America – über die amerikanische Demokratie (Transformative Salon)
Wednesday, 03 November, 2021 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

War der Sturm auf das Kapitol das fatale Ende einer unrühmlichen Präsidentschaft oder der Anfang einer anderen amerikanischen Republik? Die Historikerin Lisa McGirr von der Harvard University hat den Aufstieg von Rechtspopulisten und Rechtsradikalen bereits zu einer Zeit untersucht, als noch niemand von einer „Krise der Demokratie“ sprach.

Citizens without Borders: Yugoslavia and its Migrant Workers in Western Europe
Tuesday, 19 October, 2021 13:15 - 14:45 CEST

RECET is pleased to invite you to the Migration and Mobility Reading Group convened by Thuc Linh Nguyen Vu and Jannis Panagiotidis.

Brigitte Le Normand will present her new book “Citizens without Borders: Yugoslavia and its Migrant Workers in Western Europe” (University of Toronto Press, 2021). The talk will be followed by a Q&A and moderated by Prof.…

Origins of the Cold War
Thursday, 14 October, 2021 13:15 - 14:45 CEST

In this lecture, Professor Radchenko will discuss the new findings and remaining questions in the current debate regarding the origin of the Cold War.

Workshop: "Transformation durch Globalisierung in Zentraleuropa"
Friday, 08 October, 2021 10:00 - 17:00 CEST

Workshop of the MTA-SZTE-ELTE research group and of the Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET)

Der Balkan 30 Jahre nach dem Jugoslawienkrieg. Analyse eines erfolgreichen Scheiterns
Thursday, 07 October, 2021 19:00 - 21:00 CEST

Im Sommer 1991 begann mit den Unabhängigkeitserklärungen von Slowenien und Kroatien der blutige Zerfall des sozialistischen Jugoslawiens. Es folgten lange Kriege, das Abkommen von Dayton und der Konflikt im Kosovo. Die westliche Intervention beendete die Kriege, doch hat sie auch dauerhaften Frieden und Entwicklungsperspektiven gebracht?

Austria and the Czech Republic as Countries of Immigration: Transnational Labour Migration since 1780 in Historical Comparison
Thursday, 16 September, 2021 09:00 - 17 Sep, 16:00 CEST

The Permanent Conference of Austrian and Czech Historians (SKÖTH)

Peripheral Liberalism: Economists and Globalisation in the Transformation of Russia, 1970-2000
Thursday, 24 June, 2021 12:15 - 13:45 CEST

It is a common assumption that Russia's turbulent transition to a market economy was inspired, or even imposed, by Western advisors. But the ideas behind Russia's economic transformation were not an alien concept imported from the West in the 1990s.

Österreich auf dem Weg nach Ungarn? Politischer Wandel im Vergleich
Thursday, 17 June, 2021 19:00 - 20:00 CEST

Schwächung des Rechtsstaats, Missachtung des Parlaments, steigender staatlicher Einfluss auf die Medien: Wird Österreich unter der Kanzlerschaft von Sebastian Kurz dem illiberalen System von Ungarn unter Viktor Orbán immer ähnlicher?

Book talk: "Making and Breaking the Yugoslav Working Class"
Monday, 14 June, 2021 12:15 - 13:45 CEST

Workers’ self-management was one of the unique features of communist Yugoslavia. It prevailed, though not without challenges.

Sexual Education. Under Socialism and After.
Thursday, 10 June, 2021 14:00 - 15:30 CEST

How have people been learning, practicing and knowing sexuality, gender roles and gender awareness before and after 1989? What imprint did the social and political transformations leave on historical legacies, actors and structures of sexual education?

Deindustrializing Societies and the Political Consequence
Thursday, 20 May, 2021 12:15 - 13:45 CEST

For decades, deindustrialization has been inflicting collateral damage far beyond displaced manufacturing workers, by affecting the lives of working-class families and driving formerly industrialized areas into deprivation.

Transition from Plan to Market, Height and Well-Being
Thursday, 06 May, 2021 12:15 - 12:15 CEST

Prof. Dr. Sergei Guriev studies the impact of transition from plan to market in former communist countries on objective and subjective well-being. He has found clear evidence of the high social cost of early transition reforms...

Resilient Neoliberalism? East-Central Europe after the Financial and amidst the Covid-19 Crisis
Thursday, 15 April, 2021 12:15 - 13:45 CEST

Governments in East Central Europe have long relied on radical neoliberal reforms as a strategy to leave socialism behind and become members of the European Union. However, since the Great Financial Crisis, neoliberalism has become politicized, and some governments - most notably Hungary and Poland - have started to experiment with more statist and…

From Narrating Dissidence to Post-Dissident Narratives of Democracy: Anti-totalitarianism, Politics of Memory and Culture Wars in East Central Europe 1970s-2000s
Thursday, 25 March, 2021 12:15 - 13:45 CEST

If we want to understand the cultural forms and conceptual repertoire behind today’s culture wars in East Central Europe, we need to dig before 1989. With the help of the concept of ‘narratives of democracy,’ this talk by Dr. Michal Kopeček will go beyond the liberal vs. populist scheme prevailing today and offer a more nuanced reading.

Globalism and Its Enemies
Thursday, 11 March, 2021 16:15 - 17:45 CEST

Is the era of neoliberal globalism over? In his talk, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Quinn Slobodian (Wellesley College) will consider the history and current state of global capitalist governance and ask what directions it may take in the future.

Practices of Togetherness: Jacek Kuroń, Pedagogy, Communities of Care, and Political Opposition in Late Socialist Poland (1955-1982)
Thursday, 21 January, 2021 12:15 - 13:45 CEST
Stagecraft in the Service of Statecraft: Russia and the Eurovision Song Contest
Thursday, 14 January, 2021 12:15 - 13:45 CEST
Mundane Epiphanies: A Herstory of Czech Normalization and Its Uses for the Study of the Transformation from State Socialism
Thursday, 10 December, 2020 12:15 - 13:45 CEST

The hiSTORY of transformation from state socialism contains multiple STORIES - among them many “His- and Her-Stories” which imply different ways of experiencing and coping with sociopolitical changes related to sexuality and gender. Drawing on her research on Czech Normalization, Libora Oates-Indruchová (Graz) asks how focussing on herstories of…

Queering Postsocialism: Notes on Dispersed Archives
Thursday, 26 November, 2020 12:15 - 13:45 CEST

Magda Szcześniak (Institute of Polish Culture, University of Warsaw) explores queer counterpublics of the late 1980s and 1990s in Poland and the question of visibility of non-normative sexualities in the framework of RECET's series "His- and Her-Stories of Transformation".

Austerities and Aspirations: A Comparative History of Growth, Consumption, and Quality of Life in East Central Europe since 1945
Thursday, 19 November, 2020 11:45 - 13:15 CEST

Prof. Dr. Bela Tomka (University of Szeged) will present and discuss his book "Austerities and Aspirations: A Comparative History of Growth, Consumption, and Quality of Life in East Central Europe since 1945" (CEU Press, 2020).

A Gentleman's Understanding: British, French, and German dual-use Technology transfer to China and America’s Dilemma: 1978-1981
Thursday, 05 November, 2020 12:15 - 13:45 CEST
Red Tape: Radio and Politics in Czechoslovakia, 1945-1969
Thursday, 22 October, 2020 12:15 - 13:45 CEST