Online Symposia on 6 and 20 November: Non-Conformity, Critiques and Contention under Communist Rule in the 1970s and 1980s

With support from the Society for the Study of Labor History, Northumbria University's History of Activism research group is hosting two online symposia on different ways in which communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe was being critiqued and contested during the 1970s and 1970s. To register for these online symposia, please contact Daniel Laqua. 

Friday, 6 November 2020, 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm

• Charlotte Alston and Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University) – Welcome

Challenging ‘Actually Existing Socialism'

• André Keil (Liverpool John Moores University) – ‘Instandbesetzen’? Squatting in the Late GDR between Social Protest, Youth Culture, and Conservation
• Richard Millington (University of Chester) – Challenging the State? Petty Thieves in the GDR, 1971–1989

Cultural Change and New Social Movements

• Aleksandra Gajowy (Newcastle University) – Polish Queer Homecomings: Filo, DIK Fagazine, and Unearthing Ryszard Kisiel’s Archive
• Alexandra Wedl (University of Basel) – Green Volunteers in Czechoslovakia: The Youth Newspaper Mladý svět and Its Environmental Campaign, 1970s –1980s

Critiques and Future Visions in the Late 1980s

• Dirk Dalberg (Slovak Academy of Sciences) – Self-Government as an Alternative Socialism: Czechoslovakia in the Late 1980s
• Anna Calori (University of Leipzig) – Between Reformism and Neoliberalism: Envisaging Alternative Socialisms in the Debates of Yugoslav Economists (1987–1991)

Friday 20 November, 1:30 to 5:00 pm

Opposition Movements

• Anselma Gallinat (Newcastle University) – Challenging the State on Pastoral and Theological Grounds: Church–State Engagements in East Germany
• James Koranyi (Durham University) – Romanian Skirmishes: Aktionsgruppe Banat, Trade Union Nostalgia, and Opposition to Ceaușescu
• Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University) – Solidarity and Protest: East–West Responses to the Biermann Expatriation of 1976

Dissent in Transnational Perspective

• Irina Gordeeva (Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam / St. Philaret’s Christian Orthodox Institute, Moscow) – Edward Palmer Thompson and the Soviet Independent Peace Movement
• Mark Hurst (Lancaster University) – ‘Conversations with Cannibals’: Misunderstood Activism across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War
• Kim Christiaens and Jos Claeys (KU Leuven) – Failures, Limits and Competition: Campaigns on behalf of Eastern European Dissidents in Cold War Belgium, 1960s–1980s

Concluding Discussion

• Charlotte Alston (Northumbria University) – Discussant Comments
• Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University) – Next Steps

Call for Papers: conference on "Social Movements and the Challenges to State Socialism in Central and Eastern Europe"

Social Movements and the Challenges to 

State Socialism in Central and Eastern Europe

27 and 28 March 2020

Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne

Following the dramatic events of 1989, the political landscape looked significantly different and continued to be in flux throughout 1990. The German Democratic Republic held its first (and final) democratic election in March 1990, setting a path that ultimately led to reunification in October that year. In June 1990, the holding of parliamentary elections in Czechoslovakia confirmed the outcome of the previous year’s Velvet Revolution. And in Poland, the country’s political transformation was symbolised by the election of Solidarnośćfounder Lech Wałęsa to the presidency in December 1990. Throughout the year, challenges to the status quo in the Soviet Union came from a variety of national, political and environmental movements, extending into many aspects of everyday life.

Thirty years on from these seismic changes, our conference intends to offer a fresh assessment of the way in which communist rule was being contested before the collapse of state socialism. We are particularly interested in the ways that social movements and transnational actors challenged the existing systems and power relations. We invite proposals on different countries in the region, with a focus on movements and events in the 1970s and/or 1980s. Potential angles include the following:

o  The extent to which different activist currents – including pacifism and environmentalism – questioned the principles and practices of state socialism;

o  The responses of Western trade unionists, socialists and communists to dissident movements in the East;

o  The interactions between a new politics of human rights and traditional forms of social and political activism;

o  The ways in which particular modes of cultural expression represented and advanced political challenges; 

o  The envisaging of socialist alternatives – or alternative socialisms – within the countries in the Soviet bloc.

Alongside contributions from the discipline of History, we welcome papers that draw on examples from Literature, Music, Art and Film.

Please send your abstracts of up to 300 words as well as a short biographical note to Charlotte Alston (charlotte.alston@northumbria.ac.uk) and Daniel Laqua (daniel.laqua@northumbria.ac.uk) no later than 10 February 2020. We intend to publish a selection of papers that are presented at this event. 

The event is hosted by the ‘Histories of Activism’ research group at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, with support from the university’s Institute of Humanities and the Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH).