[Aaus-list] CFP: Assessing the Impact of WWII on Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (Princeton University, 19-20 April 2013)

Oksana Kis oksanakis55 at gmail.com
Tue Nov 13 01:04:02 EST 2012


*Assessing the Impact of WWII on Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union*

*Princeton University, 19-20 April 2013*****

*Call for Papers*****

http://impactofwarconference.wordpress.com/****

The Second World War transformed Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
German dreams of racial purity in the East resulted in mass death,
displacement, and the near total eradication of East European Jewry. The
defeat of Hitler’s Reich enabled the Soviets to extend their own empire in
Eastern Europe, as the advancing Red Army brought new territories under
Moscow’s control. The enormity of the war’s impact is widely known – and as
a result rarely examined in detail. This conference sets out to consider
how the experience of war shaped the postwar order. We aim to place the
Second World War within a continuum of East European and Soviet history,
bridging the prewar, wartime, and postwar eras. What opportunities did the
war foreclose, and which did it create? What prewar practices survived or
reappeared at war’s end? What new habits emerged, and which of these were
ultimately suppressed? ****

We focus on Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union because their shared
wartime history set them apart. This was the main theater of fighting, the
epicenter of the Holocaust, and the site of the confrontation between
communism and fascism. At the same time, the experience of war was highly
differentiated across the region. Some countries were occupied by both Nazi
and Soviet troops (Poland, the Baltic States), while others escaped either
Nazi (Romania) or Soviet (Yugoslavia) occupation. Some states were German
allies during the war; others had puppet regimes installed on their
territory; most of the Soviet Union avoided any direct fighting. To what
extent did these divergent trajectories produce different postwar outcomes?
****

Professor Kate Brown (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) will
deliver the keynote address.****

Papers can address, but are not limited to, the following themes:****

*Ghosts of War*. The war killed millions of people and annihilated East
European Jewry. How was their absence felt in the postwar era? How were the
dead remembered, commemorated, instrumentalized? Did they continue to
“haunt” postwar communities and societies?****

*War as Revolution*. Did wartime leveling facilitate the construction of
postwar communism (as Jan Gross has suggested)? Did it promote particular
economic and political structures? What patterns of social mobility did the
war create? ****

*A Continent on the Move*. Millions of people moved during the war and in
the immediate postwar years, whether as soldiers, refugees, prisoners of
war, or forced laborers. How did movement reconfigure individual and
collective identities? To what extent did it reorient social and political
networks? ****

*Transitions to Peacetime*. How did soldiers and prisoners of war adjust to
the postwar order? How did women’s roles change at the war’s end? Were
wartime behaviors suppressed, redirected, internalized? ****

*Nation, Socialism, and Empire*. To what extent did the war redefine
national identities? Did the Nazi and Soviet occupations unite or divide
the region? How did the breakdown of nation-states during the war shape
postwar nationalist movements, and how did these square with the creation
of socialist states?****

*The Legacy of War*. How was the war remembered, represented, and
commemorated? What narratives did individuals and collectivities construct
about the war? To what extent did official and personal narratives
conflict, overlap, or conflate, and how did this affect the relationship
between state and society?****

We invite papers from advanced graduate students and junior scholars in all
disciplines who are working on the countries of Eastern Europe (including
Germany, Austria, and Greece) and the former Soviet Union. We are
particularly interested in comparative papers that address multiple
countries or regions; papers that link the prewar and postwar eras; and
those that undertake interdisciplinary work. Applicants should submit an
abstract (300 words) and a short CV (2-3 pages) to
impactofwarconference at gmail.com *by January 15, 2013*. Questions can be
directed to the conference co-organizers: Franziska Exeler (
fexeler at princeton.edu) or Kyrill Kunakhovich (kkunakho at princeton.edu).****

Selections will be made by late January 2013. Final papers (10-12 pages)
will be due three weeks before the conference. They will be circulated
among the participants, to be read in advance of the conference. The
university will provide accommodation for two nights. We can make only
modest contributions towards travel expenses, and ask all participants to
apply for travel funding at their home institutions.****

** **

Franziska Exeler and Kyrill Kunakhovich****

Conference Co-organizers****

History Department, Princeton University****

http://impactofwarconference.wordpress.com/****
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