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Large Scale Use of Oral History Accounts in the Historiography of the Shoah – The Case of the Hungarian-Jewish Slave Labourers in Vienna (1944-45)

A lecture by Éva Kovacs (Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies) in the frame of the seminar on Modern Jewish History of the Institute of Contemporary History (AV ČR) and CEFRES in partnership with the Masaryk Institute (AV ČR).

Where: CEFRES library, Na Florenci 3, 110 00 Prague 1
When: from 5 pm to 6:30 pm
Language: English

In the past two decades, thanks to the opening of the digital collections in the United States, Israel, and Europe, the usage of oral history sources became attractive in historical research. These archives hold an enormous number of testimonies, which makes the research easier and faster, but, on the other hand, raises serious methodological questions. Meanwhile, the last survivors who can still give testimonies are passing away – the oral history sources are turning into „normal” archival sources soon. These new developments are challenging the history-writing on the Shoah.

Our case study deals with the everyday life of approximately 15 thousand Hungarian-Jewish deportees who were forced to work in Vienna and its vicinity in 1944-45. The presentation will focus on the Quellenkritik (source criticism) and methodology of using large oral history archives to explore insufficiently documented historical subjects.

Read more about the colloquia!

Acts of Justice, Public Events: World War II Criminals on Trial

This conference originates from the encounter of three projects: a Russian-French project on trials in the USSR (FMSH/RGNF), the micro-project of the Labex Création, Arts, Patrimoines ‘Images de la justice”, and the WW2CRIMESONTRIAL1943-1991 project supported by the French National Research Agency.

Find out more about the ANR project “Nazi War Crimes in Court” here

Partners: CEFRES, March Bloch Center, CERCEC, CEFR, GDR “CEM” and CERHEC
Time & Venue: 12-14 Octobre 2017, CEFRES, Prague
Language: English

Read the call for papers here

Program

Thursday 12 October 

9.00 Opening Remarks

Media narratives and their reception
9.30-11.30 
Panel I: Mediatization As a Turning Point: Attractive Features & Risks 
Discussant: Françoise Mayer

  • Ornella Rovetta: Judging War Criminals in the 1920s: A Pioneering Precedent in Making Post-War Justice Visible?
  • Radu Stancu: Capital Punishment for War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in Romania after World War II
  • Enrico Heitzer: The “Norwegians”: a Nearly Forgotten Group of German and Austrian Nazi and War Criminals in Front of Soviet Courts 1946/47

Coffee Break

11.45-1.45
Panel II: Fixed Components of Media Narrative and Its Consequences 
Discussant: Dimitri Astashkin

  • Alexander Epifanov: Information Support to Trials over Hitler’s War Criminals and Accomplices in the USSR in 1941–1956
  • Elena Kokkoken: Pskov Regional Press: The Trials over Russian Collaborators
  • Marie-Bénedicte Vincent: Ernst Kaltenbrunner in the Trial of Nuremberg: Which Reception in the Press Under Military Control of Occupied West Germany?

Lunch Break

Social Mobilisation and Justice
3.00-5.00
Panel III: Sparking off social commitment
Discussant: Audrey Kichelewski

  • Agnieszka Smelkowska: Revenge and justice on display: rehabilitacja in post-war Poland
  • Gabriel Finder: Jews, Poles, and Justice in the Aftermath of the Holocaust
  • Nadège Ragaru: Differentiated Publicity: The Sandglass of the (In-) visibilization of the Trials for Anti-Jewish Crimes in Bulgaria (1944-1945)

Friday 13 October
Social Mobilization and Justice 

9.30-11.30
Panel IV: Victims and Witnesses: Driving Forces for Justice (1)
Discussant: Vanessa Voisin

  • Natalia Aleksiun: Survivor Networks and the Polish Post-War Trials
  • Giovanni Focardi, Andrea Martini: Shadows and lights in Trials against Fascists: Transitional Justice in Italy (1943-1953)
  • Maxilimian Becker: Victims’ Unions’ Reception of Trials: The Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem 1961 and the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial 1963-1965

Coffee Break

11.45-1.15
Panel V: Victims and Witnesses: Driving Forces for Justice (2)
Discussant: Emilia Koustova

  • Máté Zombory: Arrow Cross atrocities on trial: the public trajectory of a key witness in Budapest (1945-1949)
  • Birte Klarzyk, Anne Klein: Dynamics and Multiperspectivity of Justice: The “FFDJF” and the “Lischka Trial” of Kurt Lischka, Herbert Hagen and Ernst Heinrichsohn in Cologne, 1979/80

Lunch Break

1.50-2.30
Film projection: The Victims Accuse (Moscow/Minsk, 1963). Commented by Jasmin Söhner and Vanessa Voisin

2.40-4.40
Panel VI: The Limits of Social Mobilization
Discussant: Alain Blum

  • Eric Le Bourhis, Irina Tcherneva: Soviet citizens write to the press and to the general prosecutor: the reception of the Kacherovski trial in Riga (1959)
  • Regina Kazyulina: The Contingency of Postwar Justice in the Crimean Countryside
  • Andrea Pető: Post WWII Trials and Perpetrators in Hungarian Cinema. The Missing Composure

Saturday 14 October
Transnational Justice in Postwar Europe

9.30-11.30
Panel VIII: Reception of Propaganda and Political Fallout
Discussant: Clara Royer

  • James Ryan: Ideology on Trial: Ideology on Trial: The Prosecution of Leftists and Pan-Turkists at the Dawn of the Cold War in Turkey, 1944-1947
  • Fabien Théofilakis: The Eichmann Trial (1961) on the Front Page”: How did the Western European Press deal with the Nazi Past?
  • Jasmin Söhner: Presenting unambiguous results: the case of Erwin Schüle

Coffee Break

11.45-1.45
Panel IX: Media Impact on Judicial Procedures
Discussant: Sylvie Lindeperg

  • Steven Remy: The Visual Politics of Infamy: The Malmedy Massacre Trial and its Aftermath
  • Kateřina Králová: In the Shade of Eichmann: Prosecution of Max Merten in Greece and Beyond
  • Vojtěch Kyncl: Judicial scandal in the “Malloth” process

1.45-2.45: Concluding Remarks

Transfer, Translation and Transmission of Knowledge in Monastic Networks – Keynote speech by József Laszlovszky

Transfer, Translation and Transmission of Knowledge in Monastic Networks. Research Directions and Approaches in the Study of Medieval and Early Modern Patterns

A keynote speech by József Laszlovszky (Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest)

Time & Venue: 5:30 PM at Špork Palace, Hybernská 3, Prague 1, room nr. 303
Language: English

József Laszlovszky is a full time professor of the Department of Medieval Studies at the Central European University and a guest lecturer at the Department of Medieval and Postmedieval Archaeology at the  Eötvös Loránd University.  His research fields cover archaeology, archaeozoology, material culture and everyday life with a strong focus on ecclesiastical, urban and enomic history. He is the director of the Cultural Heritage Studies Program at CEU.

Abstract

Interactions and exchanges (spiritual and material) between monastic communities have been discussed in monastic studies for a very long period of time: to some extent the history of monastic culture and the issue of mission by monastic groups cover all related research questions in this context. Textual and church historical research of monastic rules, the movement and travels of leading monastic figures, the history of pilgrimages, the transmission of texts between monastic scriptoria, and the study of monastic libraries were typical research directions in these previous studies.  More recently, the concept of knowledge transfer was introduced as a holistic approach and more emphasis has been given to the problem of communication. The question is not only about the object of the knowledge transfer, but more about the ways and means of interactions between the monastic communities.

By using the results of a joint research project carried out by the FOVOG (Research Centre for the Comparative History of Religious Orders) in Dresden and the Department of Medieval Studies at CEU (Budapest) during the last some years this paper offers an overview of the new research directions in monastic studies. It will discuss the key concepts of these studies, such as the transmission of ideas, objects and complex knowledge packages in monastic circles. These examples allow us to understand better the general problem of monastic life. The combination of a written regula and of a set of unwritten rules and practices is the key factor in establishing a new monastic community.  Research results will be presented on the issue of monastic architecture, technological innovations and of „monastic business management”. Recent studies in the field of such questions in the medieval and early modern period have already demonstrated that the traditional boundaries between the different monastic orders should not be taken as clear cut division lines and more interaction can be detected in this respect. By introducing new research concepts into these fields of studies, such as the concept of monastic landscape, a more global (international) research direction can be developed. At the same time, local aspects and influences can also be taken into consideration, and for these the issue of siting or site selection in the process of a new monastic foundations play a crucial role.

Instead of a panoramic and general overview of all these questions, the paper will offer case-studies to highlight different research approaches and concepts, particularly in the context of material evidence for knowledge transfer and transmission of ideas.

 

(Trans)Missions: Monasteries As Sites of Cultural Transfers

A workshop organized by the Center for Ibero-American Studies of the Faculty of Arts, Charles University (SIAS FF UK), CEFRES and the Institute of Art History of Czech Academy of Sciences (ÚDU AV ČR). The collaboration is realized within the Research project “Cataloging and study of the translations of Spanish and Ibero-American Dominicans”.

Venue: Špork Palace, Hybernská 3, Prague 1, room nr. 303
Scientific organizers: Monika Brenišínová (SIAS FF UK), Katalin Pataki (CEFRES) and Lenka Panušková (IAH CAS)
Language: English

Read more information about the workshop here

Read the call for papers here

Read the abstracts of the workshop here

Program

25 September, 2017 Monday

9.30–10.00            Registration
10.00–10.40         Opening Ceremony and introduction (organisers)

  • Markéta Křížová (Centre for Ibero-American Studies, Charles University)
  • Clara Royer (French Research Centre in Humanities and Social Sciences)
  • Tomáš Winter (Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Sciences)

10.40–12.10
Interpretation and Context
Chair: Veronika Čapská (Department of General Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University)

  • Martin Lešák, Monasteries on the Horizon: The Sacral Landscape Through the Senses of Medieval Pilgrims
  • Jana Králová, The Monastery Translation From the Contemporary Perspective
  • Jan Tesárek and Barbora Spálová, Other time: Construction of Temporality in Benedictine Monasteries

12.10–14.00 Lunchbreak

14.00–15.00
Monastic Networks: Technology and Society
Chair: Jan Zdichynec (Department of the Czech History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University)

  • Barnabás Szekér, Whose Instructions? – Educational Orders, Administration, and Rules of Higher Schools in the 18th Century Kingdom of Hungary
  • Katalin Pataki, The Monasteries as Mediators of Medical Knowledge – Camaldolese Pharmacies of the Hungarian Kingdom and Austria

15.00–15.30 Coffee break

15.30–17.00
Devotion and Vocation: The Transition of Ideas
Chair: Markéta Křížová (Centre for Ibero-American Studies, Charles University)

  • Antonio Bueno, To whom may read this. The Prologue of Linguistic Works and Translations of the Dominicans as the Main Ideas for Reflection on Translation Theory
  • Monika Brenišínová, Mexican Monasteries and Processions. The transmission of ideas, space and time
  • Marcin F. Rdzak, Books of Enrollment to the Fraternity of the Scapular (1911-1946) from the Convent of Carmelite Fathers in Lwow. The Transition of Devotional Patterns

17.00–17.30 Coffee break

17.30
Keynote Lecture
József Laszlovszky (Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University)
Transfer, Translation and Transmission of Knowledge in Monastic Networks — Research Directions and Approaches in the Study of Medieval and Early Modern Patterns

26 September, 2017 Tuesday

9.00–10.00
Arts and Architecture: Transferring the Forms
Chair: Lenka Panušková (Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Sciences)

  • Pavel Štěpánek, El Escorial jako duchovní model českých a
    moravských klášterů ve světle současné interpretace
    (Hradisko, Kuks, Plasy) [El Escorial as Spiritual Model of Czech and Moravian Monasteries in the Light of the Contemporary Interpretation (Hradisko, Kuks, Plasy)]
  • Jana Povolná, Sázava monastery: St Procop, Scriptorium and the Church

10.00–10.30 Coffee break

10.30–12.00
Writing Monastery
Chair: Kateřina Bobková (Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences)

  • Renata Modráková, Benedictine St. George’s Cloister at the Prague Castle as a Crossroad of Medieval Cultural Trend and Ideas
  • Jan Kremer: Religious Identity and Order Discipline – Early Thirteenth-Century Bohemian Premonstratensians
  • Kristian Bertović, Glagolitic monks—Monastic Continuity and Glagolitic Script in the Medieval Croatia and the Istrian Peninsula

12.00–13.00 Lunchbreak

13.00–14.30
Presentations of ongoing projects

  • Klášterní stezky (project of the Department of History and History Didactics, Faculty of Education, Charles University); http://www.klasterni-stezky.cz/
  • Visions of Community (VISCOM, University of Vienna); https://viscom.ac.at/home/
  • Szerzetesség a kora újkori Magyarországon – Religious Orders of Early Modern Hungary http://szerzetes.hypotheses.org/
  • Sources, Forms, and Functions of the Monastic Historiography
    in Early Modern Ages in the Czech Lands

Closing remarks
Lenka Panušková (IAH CAS), Katalin Pataki (CEFRES), Monika Brenišínová (SIAS FF UK)

15.30
The Emmaus Monastery
Guided tour by Kateřina Kubínová

Tracing the Legacies of the Roma Genocide: Families as Transmitters of Experience and Memory

When: 20–21 September 2017
Where: Czech Academy of Sciences, Villa Lanna, Prague
Language: English

The conference is a joint event bringing together two recent academic initiatives focusing on the research on the history of the Roma and supporting new approaches in the field: the Prague Forum for Romani Histories and the Research network on ‘Legacies of the Roma Genocide in Europe since 1945’, which is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC, United Kingdom). Both initiatives aim at fostering a debate on the history of Roma as part of European history and contemporary European society.

Find the program of the conference here!

See the flyer and the program here.

More on the Prague Forum for Romani Histories

CEFRES 2016/17 Concluding Seminar

After a year spent at CEFRES, CEFRES 2016/17 PhD students will present to their fellow colleagues the outcomes of their research in a joint concluding seminar, and welcome the members of CEFRES team 2017/2018.

Place and time: Na Florenci 3, building C, conference room, 3rd floor, between 2 and 5:30 PM
Language: English

Program

2:00 Mátyás Erdélyi : Modernity, Capitalism, and Private-Clerks: The Philosophy of Money in Austria-Hungary

2:30 Filip Herza : Freak Shows and the Collective Body of Nation in Prague 1860s-1930s: The Concept of Disability and Nationalism Studies

3:00 Katalin Pataki : From Victims to Collaborators: the Dissolution Procedure of Mendicant Monasteries in the Hungarian Kingdom (1787-1793)

3:30 Coffee Break

4:00 Chiara Mengozzi (post-doctoral researcher): Literary Animals: Thinking Beyond Human, Reading Against Allegory

4:30 Magdalena Cabaj : From Hermaphrodite Writing to Intersex Writing

5:00 Lara Bonneau : Fall and Ascent: Reading Warburg with Binswanger