Starting out from the classic understanding of the tragic in ancient Greece, this talk will examine Milan Kundera's essay "The Tragedy of Central Europe" published in 1984 alongside an episode in the political career of Hungarian political theorist István Bibó. … Read more
For the last couple of years, Central Europe has witnessed many political shifts. Public opinion in the Visegrad 4 countries has changed significantly after the economic recession of 2008, the EURO currency crisis, and the wave of refugees. Victor Orbán, … Read more
The twofold increase of asylum applications in the EU in 2015 led many to talk about a ‘migration crisis’ or ‘refugee crisis.’ However, such framing obscures the fact that Europe has received only a fraction of people fleeing the wars in … Read more
This talk will examine the deep and often troubling change of Central European cities after the fall of state socialism by using Prague as its case. It will look specifically at following transformations: a collapse of traditional Prague-based manufacturing and … Read more
Recent series of economic, security, and political crises culminating in the UK decision to exit the European Union have sparked a new round of discussions on the EU’s future. This talk will examine the stakes in the most recent attempts … Read more
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Hungary’s national borders continually shifted as a result of various treaties, wars, and geopolitical alignments. There are now significant Hungarian-speaking communities in Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine, and most notably Romania, its biggest neighbor to … Read more
The politics of history has been one of the constitutive elements of the new democracies in East Central Europe after 1989. ‘Coming to terms with the communist past’ was especially important as a means of securing the legitimacy of new … Read more
Written in different times, diverse political climates, and in various countries, memoirs of female Auschwitz survivors tell a compelling story of concentration camp experiences specific to women, and allow for a reflection on what it meant to be a “woman” … Read more
Until the mid-twentieth century, studies of ethnicity and race were a source of an epistemological and political competition between scientific schools in Europe and the United States. As a result, ubiquitous notions developed in the post-World War I period about ethnic … Read more
The migrant crisis in 2015 solicited diverse responses from the “old” and “new” Europe. East Central European governments showed little interest in offering refuge on their territories. This reaction has a historical and cultural background to how belonging is defined … Read more
