[aaus-list] CfA: History Takes Place, Warsaw 7.-18.9.09 (18.6.)

[Andreas Umland]

Call for applications

Warsaw – A Mirror of European History and Contemporary Reality
Summer School „History Takes Place: European Memorial Sites”

September 7 – 18, 2009

Unlike any other European capital, Warsaw clearly exposes the major transition periods of the past two centuries. The city was greatly influenced by the illusionary splendour and social contrasts of the legendary Saxon period, the humiliation of the capital during the partitions of Poland, the great reform projects of the Polish enlightenment, and Warsaw's role as an imperial Russian residence. Warsaw was never a provincial town.

The profile of Warsaw was forged by the erratic national movements of the 19th century, the peasant liberation movement, industrialization, the exciting emergence of the bourgeoisie, and the largest Jewish community in Europe. At the end of the century, Warsaw had become the fourth largest city of the Russian Empire. In 1918, it was again proclaimed the capital of Poland. The following decades were characterized by conflicts about the territorial order and the borders of the Polish nation state, inflation, artistic revival, the „Golden Twenties“, the financial crisis, and state-controlled democracy, which, at the end of the 1930ies, was declared dispensable.

The second German occupation of the 20th century caused the deepest and bloodiest disruption in the history of Warsaw. In fact, the city had ceased to exist in 1945. Its citizens had died in war, were murdered or deported and its Jewish community had been systematically annihilated.

The reconstruction of Warsaw was both, a political myth, and at the same time an excellent performance of heritage management. It provided basis for the today’s capital, together with major demographic changes and the sometimes well-planed and sometimes chaotic expansion of the city into a socialist metropolis.

Since 2003 and at different central locations, the ZEIT-Stiftung has invited up to 20 young historians and scholars of cultural studies (primarily Ph.D. students) to attend academic seminars exploring the „spectrum of Central and Eastern Europe“ (H. v. Keyserlingk). These major sites and their regions are perceived as lieux de mémoire. Participants explore historical traces in local topographies, in architecture and monuments. The city itself is studied as a historical source - „History Takes Place“. The Summer Schools intend to internationalize and affiliate the historically-oriented humanities and cultural studies.. This year, Prof. Dr. Werner Benecke (European University Viadrina at Frankfurt/Oder) will serve as the academic director of the Summer School in Warsaw, which will also be sponsored by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung.

Please mail applications including cover letter, curriculum vitae and a paper proposal (up to two pages) to

ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius
Dr.. des. Anna Hofmann
Feldbrunnenstraße 56
20148 Hamburg.

Application deadline: June 18, 2009.

Topics:

1. The splendor and misery of the time of the Saxons´ reign in the history of Warsaw

2. Between the Congress of Vienna and the November Uprising

3. Industrialization

4. Russification

5. First World War and regaining of independence

6. The war for independence and the Golden Twenties

7. Jewish Warsaw before the extermination

8. September 1939 and occupation experience

9. The uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943

10. The Warsaw Uprising 1944

11. The Warsaw myth of reconstruction

12. Warsaw during the socialist period

13. The current city in change

14. The identity of the Warsaw people in the mirror of their language and self-reflection

http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/termine/id=11359