Rethinking knowledge, questioning scientific approaches?

Rethinking knowledge, questioning scientific approaches? The Baltic States, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldavia Between Central Europe and the Former Soviet Space

Conference organized by Lab Research Clusters Central Europe and East (GDR CEM & GDR EST) of the French National Center for Scientific Research Humanities & Social Sciences Institute (CNRS SHS) with the support of the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research. 

Date: February 12-13, 2025
Location: INALCO  and Institute of slavic studies (Paris) or on-line (to receive the link, please email us at cefres@cefres.cz)
Language: French & English

Scientific Committee: Olga Bronnikova, Mateusz Chmurski, Anna Colin-Lebedev, Iryna Dmytrychyn, Galyna Dranenko, Catherine Géry, Alexandra Goujon, Catherine Gousseff, Paul Gradvohl, Luba Jurgenson, Emilia Koustova, Éric Le Bourhis, Anne Le Huérou, Florent Parmentier, Ioana Popa, Nadège Ragaru, Kathy Rousselet, Clara Royer, Laurent Tatarenko.

Organizing Committee: Olga Bronnikova, Françoise Daucé, Paul Gradvohl, Valéry Kossov, Emilia Koustova, Nadège Ragaru, Kathy Rousselet, Clara Royer, Tatyana Shukan.

CEFRES will be represented by: Pavlo Khudish, Valeriia Korablyova

Program

Wednesday, 12 February
Auditorium Dumézil, Inalco

Morning (9:00-12:30)

Opening  by William Berthomière (CNRS) and Dramane Coester (MAÉ).

Introduction by Paul Gradvohl, Emilia Koustova, Kathy Rousselet and Clara Royer (GDR CEM et GDR Est)

1/ Conséquences de la guerre sur la construction des savoirs
Moderation : Tatyana Shukan (ANR EXILEST / Centre Emile Durkheim)

Yurchuk Yuliya (Södertörn University), Rethinking humanities in the shadow of Russo-Ukrainian war. The case of memory studies and Ukraine

Ousmanova Almira (European Humanities University, Vilnius), The production of knowledge as a “crime”: Belarusian scholars under the condition of political repression, war, exile and deterritorialization (2020 – 2024)

Coffee break

Balázs Trencsényi (CEU Vienna/Budapest), Contextualizing, Transnationalizing, Decolonizing? Repositioning Ukrainian History as Emergency Pedagogy

Ragaru Nadège (CNRS-CERI) Penser/classer: l’Ukraine et ses attaches dans les rayonnages des librairies parisiennes

Discussion: Anna Colin-Lebedev (Université Paris Nanterre-ISP) and Alexandra Goujon (Université de Bourgogne-CREDESPO)

Afternoon (14:00-18:00)

2/ Perspectives décoloniales
Moderation : Mateusz Chmurski (CEFRES, Prague)

Riabchuk Mykola (Institute of Political and Nationalities’ Studies, Kyiv), Mapping “Nowhere Nations”: Imperial Knowledge and Challenges of Decolonization

Korablyova Valeriia (Université Charles), Strategic inter-imperiality: de-centering Eastern Europe, creolizing the theory

Coffee break

Robert-Bœuf Camille (Université de Vilnius), La géographie pour comprendre les espaces ruraux lituaniens en 2024 : entre postcolonialisme et fantômes géographiques

Suveica Svetlana (Universität Regensburg), Borderland Epistemologies: (Decolonial) Perspectives on Moldova’s History and Identity.

Discussion: Luba Jurgenson (Sorbonne Université-EUR’ORBEM) et Hamit Bozarslan (EHESS-CETOBaC)

***

Thursday, 13 February
Hall 6 – Centre Panthéon – Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Morning (9:30-12:00)

3/ Disparition d’empires et reconfiguration de la science
Moderation : Paul Gradvohl (Panthéon-Sorbonne-SIRICE)

Górny Maciej (Académie polonaise des sciences), Cordon sanitaire through science: 19th and 20th century approaches to the limits of Russia in the times of war

Smalkyte Justina (USHMM, Washington), Le « passé subalterne » et les « conflits mémoriels » : récits historiens sur la Seconde Guerre mondiale en Lituanie après 1990

Daucé Françoise, Kirtchik Olessia (EHESS-CERCEC), Rethinking debates on sovereignty in the light of Internet histories

Discussion: Ioana Popa (CNRS- ISP)

Afternoon (13:30-18:00)

4/ Repenser les frontières
Moderation : Catherine Géry (Inalco-CREE)

Moutier-Bitan Marie (Université de Caen), Décloisonner les études sur la Shoah en Moldavie et en Ukraine de l’Ouest : réflexions autour des usages du fleuve-frontière Dniestr dans les politiques
génocidaires nazie et roumaine.

Segal Raz (Stockton University), Csősz László (Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives, Budapest), Khudish Pavlo (Uzhhorod National University), Jews and Roma in the Subcarpathian Region. Uncovering Entangled Histories and their Contemporary Significance

Coffee break

Dmytrychyn Iryna (Inalco-CREE), Dranenko Galyna (Sorbonne Université-Eur’Orbem), « Frontières-cicatrices » : les traces d’un effacement du réel et du savoir sur l’Ukraine dans le roman de Sofia Andrukhovych Amadoca (2020)

Parmentier Florent (Sciences Po), La Transnistrie à l’heure de la guerre en Ukraine : limites
frontalières, continuités historiques et recompositions géopolitiques

Discussion: Juliette Cadiot (EHESS-CERCEC)

Round table:  Fait(s) religieux et frontières politiques aux confins de l’Europe médiane et orientale : perspectives croisées sur un champ en renouvellement

Ivan Almes, Denys Brylov, Ovidiu Olar, Kathy Rousselet, Laurent Tatarenko et Maksym Yaremenko

Presentation of the conference

This two-day conference will focus on developments in humanities and social sciences (HSS) in and about Belarus, Ukraine, Moldavia and the Baltic states. These states, formerly Soviet republics, all belonged to different empires (Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire) before 1917, depending on the era, and form part of a buffer zone torn between East and West. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine prompted us to rethink our knowledge of Ukraine and accelerate its “decolonization”, in order to study Ukrainian history and society in their specificity and in their relations with the countries of Central Europe. Decentering knowledge about Belarus and Moldavia is also considered. In the Baltic States, this process had begun much sooner, but the current situation raises new questions. These three countries are also becoming a place for Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian scientists to find refuge.

Aim of the conference

  • To study the evolution of the region’s territorial boundaries, as past and present scientific practices define them. HSS have never ceased to draw and question large ‘regions’, supposedly sharing geographical, historical, political, cultural and linguistic characteristics: Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, Mitteleuropa, Middle or Central Europe, post-Soviet space. Their names and outlines speak volumes about both the objects defined and the observers. Belarus, Ukraine, Moldavia and the Baltic States have been studied as parts of different spaces, depending on the era, the country and the discipline. How is this question of perimeters coped with in these countries, but also in their European neighbors (notably Poland) and in former Soviet republics turned into sovereign States? What is the situation in France?
  • To grasp the challenges facing the HSS in Belarus, Ukraine, Moldavia and the Baltic States, with a particular focus on the way in which research articulates national spaces within larger or contrasting groupings (national and transnational minority groups; authoritarian contexts, war and research in exile; decolonization and the appeal of a national tale or narrative; political agendas, particularly rapprochement with the European Union; the place of expertise and its relationship to research, etc.).
  • To examine research on Belarus, Ukraine, Moldavia and the Baltic States carried out by researchers in Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia over the last three decades. Whereas in the USSR, knowledge and expertise of its internal geo-cultural areas were largely centralized, how are these mutating today in the states that were formerly Soviet republics? Have the relationships forged between institutions during the Soviet era disappeared? To what extent is research now focusing more on circulations and connections between countries, far from Moscow, and how does this new horizontality in knowledge production affect the content of knowledge? To what extent is the perspective of “decolonization” actually used, and comparative studies of this process emerging? How are the relations between Belarus, Ukraine, Moldavia and the Baltic States and the rest of the former USSR being studied?

We’d like the conference to end with a round-table discussion entitled “Humanities and Social Sciences for European Neighborhood and Enlargement Policies”, with representatives from our two areas at the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. The proceedings will be partially published.