Research Centre for East European Studies

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The Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen is dedicated since its founding in 1982 by Wolfgang Eichwede contemporary developments in culture and society of the countries of East Central and Eastern Europe and thereby developed its own profile within the German research landscape.

About the Research Centre

The Research Centre for Eastern Europe was founded in 1982 under Wolfgang Eichwede as a "safe haven" for documents of samizdat ( underground literature ) from Eastern Europe. Their mission was and is to collect evidence of critical thought and social movements in Eastern Europe to complete their analysis and classification in the historical, social and political structures and developments in Eastern Europe and to publish relevant research results.

At the time of the Soviet bloc, the censorship and repression functioned Research Centre for East European cultural memory of dissidents and opposition activists in Eastern Europe. About the varied channels and paths reached documents from the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and East Germany Bremen, where it succeeded in spite of the Iron Curtain, to establish a focal point for dissidents and their work. In the 1980s, the research therefore focused on the manifestations of independent artistic activity and intellectual production of the subsoil. Behind the facades of official policy those informal currents and oppositional approaches were tracked, could provide information about the interior views of these companies.

The political and social upheavals in eastern Europe, the Research Centre for a deep cut represents the collection activities of the Archives of the Research Centre began after the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the USSR 1989/1991 to bloom properly. What had previously been smuggled illegally or semi-legally to Bremen, has now been officially transferred. In the 1990s, the archive grew rapidly, and today offers Bremen with his evolved archive structure the proper context for further material unofficial work.

The research activity has shifted now increasingly on the transformation processes in Eastern and Central Europe. Here, historians, political scientists and literary scholars concentrated at the Research Centre Eastern Europe less on the economic processes, as they are typically handled by the transformation research, but primarily on the historical traditions and cultural continuities that transcend acting through 1989/1991 and the specific ground for the transformation in politics, economics, society and culture prepare.

In the center of the current interdisciplinary research on cross-cutting issues are the extent to which the state socialist past and the Soviet Hegemonialzeit affect current developments and the countries and societies in Eastern and Central Europe continue to shape. Dissent and consensus, domination and opposition, on the other hand, examines the one hand and post-socialist transformation under the various conditions of authoritarian domination and hegemony.

The work of the Research Centre for East European structure is divided into four areas: archives, scientific research, current country analyzes and exhibitions.

For their contributions to the cultural cooperation between Germany and Poland, the Research Centre was awarded the prestigious Gdansk Erich Brost Award 1999.

Structure

The Research Centre is a foundation under civil law, supported by the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the State of North Rhine -Westphalia. After initial funding from the Volkswagen Foundation, the Institute was transferred to the joint country financing of the Standing Conference 1986/87. As a body at the University of Bremen, the Research Centre on the person of its director, who is also a professor at the university, as well as on substantive agreements and cooperation is closely connected with this. The internal structure of the research center is divided into the areas of research, archive and library, and public relations in the form of cultural and political advice.

Research

The research activities of the academic staff of the Research Centre for East European Studies at Bremen University is divided into the two areas of work history and culture as well as politics and economics. Priority countries for both work areas are the former Soviet Union and the countries of East Central Europe, particularly Poland and the Czech Republic / Slovakia.

Department of History and Culture

Current research projects in the field of history and culture

• The own position. The personal opinion of the Central Committee members and their influence on the domestic and foreign policy of the Soviet Union, 1964-1985.

• Work is the first necessity of life? A cultural history of labor in the Soviet Union, 1950-1991

• Dissidents in transit. Politics, Culture and Transnational Ties of Soviet ' non- conformist ' Intellectuals

• The visual dismantling a dictatorship. Photography as a practice of resistance in the work of the Czech dissident Ivan Kyncl in the 1970s

• Cultural space ( political ) Storage: in a prison camp and their influence on social movements and underground culture in the Soviet Union of the 1960s - 1980s

• Polish Underground and post their stamps in the 1980s, the People's Republic of Poland

• The Soviet censorship of fiction literature in East Germany in the 1970s and 1980s in the GDR, illustrated by the village prose genres and war novel

• Dealing with new music in the GDR of the Sixties

• Spaces of de-Stalinization. The bearing resolution on the Kolyma, 1953-1960

• The Soviet fever. Football fans in the post-Stalinist multiethnic empire

• Cultural history of foreign policy (1815-1991)

• Brezhnev - A Biography

Completed research projects in the field of history and culture

On the basis of their archive, which contains more than 150 000 samizdat documents in the original and more than 300 discounts, the Research Centre in the years 2000 to 2004, a large exhibition series " samizdat. Alternative culture in Central and Eastern Europe organized in the 1960s to the 1980s ". In Berlin, the exhibition of the Budapest Mayor Gábor Demszky and former civil rights activist was opened in Prague by Federal President Johannes Rau and Czech President Václav Havel, in Brussels by EU Commissioner Günter Verheugen and in Budapest from German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. The exhibitions were a large international echo. In Prague alone were over 75,000 visitors.

Subsequently, the research center created another exhibition project "counter views. Photographs for political and cultural opposition in Eastern Europe 1956-1989 ", which is designed as a traveling exhibition across Europe.

In addition to individual research on dissent and society throughout Eastern and Central Europe began in January 2007 in cooperation with institutes in Moscow, Warsaw, Poznan, Prague and Budapest, a research network on "The other Eastern Europe - the 1960s to the 1980s. Dissent in politics and society, alternatives in culture. Contributions to comparative contemporary history " his work, which is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. The research site was characterized in coordination with other German universities and partners in the U.S. and Western Europe became an important center of research in contemporary history of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The duration of the project ended in June 2009.

For the unique holdings of the Bremer archive currently a database is built which is similar to a pilot project in its combination of more than five languages. Overviews of the archives from 2008 appear in a separate book series.

List of completed research projects

Dissent and Samizdat

• The other Eastern Europe - the 1960s to the 1980s. Dissent in politics and society, alternatives in culture. Contributions to comparative contemporary history (VW Research Network )
• The Gulag of the Russian memory. Search for clues in the Perm region
• Photo project " The World of the dissenters "

Literature

• Canon formation in the current Czech culture
• Paradigm shift in Polish prose

Looted art

• Workgroup Soviet cultural goods

Workspace politics and economy

Here are mentioned in the first place extensive research projects that had their priorities in the fields of economy and culture Informal politics in recent years. Examination topics for Russia and Eastern Europe were present taxation, the role of trust in business relationships, the political influence of entrepreneurs and the development of corporate governance, with the majority of the projects was made possible by external funding.

Other areas of research in recent years were ( in part to a comparative level) the development of new state symbolism in Russia and Slovakia, processes of identity formation and the politics of the past in Poland, the Czech Republic and Russia. In addition, individual analyzes to countries and regions.

A recent focus is the integration of the new post-socialist member countries in decision-making at the EU level. The focus is on the role of civil society stakeholders. Within the 6th Framework Programme of the EU, the Institute is working on this as a team leader in the Integrated Project " New Modes of Governance ". In another third-party funded research project will examine how the Polish, Czech and Slovak trade unions to cope with the EU governance.

Since 2000, the Research Centre regularly organizes youth conferences for young Eastern European experts who are currently supported by the Otto Wolff Foundation. Since 2006, the Changing Europe Summer School is also carried out, which is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. The aim of the summer school is to involve selected students from all over the world in the European Studies. At the Summer Academy of the Research Centre are involved more than 40 internationally renowned scientists in different functions headed.

Publications

The results of our research are published in two book series ( " analysis of culture and society in Eastern Europe" at LIT -Verlag and " Changing Europe " at Ibidem -Verlag) as well as individual volumes. The Historical Archive of the Research Centre has its own book series when Ibidem -Verlag. Add to that the registered as a magazine series "Working Papers and Materials Research Centre for East European " with ten issues per year.

Country analyzes

The field presence also published in regular e -mail services, particularly countries information services in German and English languages, which together have more than 16,000 subscribers in politics, business, media and the interested public. This country analyzes offer regular assessments of current political, economic, social and cultural developments in East-Central Europe and the CIS. Authors are international experts, scientists and experts. The individual country reports issued by the Research Centre for East European in cooperation with the German Society for East European Studies involving different partners and sponsors.

Since 2003, the Russian Analytical Digest, which since 2006 with the Russian Analytical Digest, an English-language sister publication to appear. The analysis of Russian developments is supplemented since 2005 by kultura, treated in a German and an English edition current developments in the sphere of culture of Russia.

In 2006, the range of countries to Ukraine - Poland - analyzes and analyzes has been extended. 2008 also added nor the Central Asia - analyzes that deal with current political and economic developments in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

In addition, quarterly appear different bibliographic services, each giving an overview of current country-based English-and German -language scientific publications on politics, foreign policy, economic, social and environmental issues. Bibliographic services there since 2002, with Russia and Ukraine, since 2005 to Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia and from 2008 to the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan). They are issued in cooperation with the Koszalin Institute of Comparative European Studies ( KICES ).

International Cooperation Partner

Cooperation partners in Russia include the International Society Memorial in Moscow that have similar research interests pursued for the former Soviet Union as the Research Centre, and the Russian State Humanities University ( RGGU ) and the Moscow Higher School of Economics, which is a lively exchange of lecturers exists.

Important contacts in Central and Eastern Europe are the Institute of Contemporary History and the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, the archive KARTA in Warsaw, the Chair of Polish Studies and Comparative Literature in Poznan and the Political Science Faculty of the Comenius University in Bratislava.

The Research Centre is also equipped with institutions in the U.S. (including Hoover Institution, Harvard University and the Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick ) and Western Europe (ETH Zurich, University of Amsterdam, University of Cambridge ) international network.

Evaluation

In 1998, the Research Centre for East European was evaluated by the Science Council. Among other things it says in the positive assessment by the Commission:

" The work of the Research Centre for East European enjoy in Germany and abroad in science and politics a good reputation. They are with their focus on cultural and political aspects of the transformation processes in Russia, Poland, the Czech and the Slovak Republic is a important component of European Studies in Germany. The extensive Samizdat Archive Research Centre is unique in Europe and includes a large number of documents, some unique items that are often no longer present in the studied countries or accessible, but for research of great importance. The political consulting activities of the Research Centre complements its research and enjoys the esteem of their addressees. The continuous monitoring and timely analysis of current developments in the countries studied as well as the maintenance and expansion of the archive require a high degree of continuity and flexibility, as they can only be guaranteed in a non-university institution. "