During the period of the partition of Europe, Soviet-type regimes were initially mostly viewed under the aspects of political dictatorship and totalitarianism. From the 1960ies onwards, the research focussed on differentiations within the Soviet bloc and the modernization the systems had achieved in spite of their non-democratic structure. But the history of Eastern Europe in the communist era was not only a history of one-party regimes, of their ideology, their practical policies and their impact on the societies. The repeated attempts of resistance against the communist rule and of change from within the society and the culture must also be taken into consideration. To underline their importance, it may suffice to mention the dates 1953 (East Germany), 1956 (Hungary), 1968 (Czechoslovakia) and 1980/81 (Poland). The voices of dissent, which were also part of the preparation of the historic upheavals of 1989 and 1991, constitute one of the major contributions made by Eastern Eutope to the history of Europe as a whole in the second half of the 20-th century. In spite of this, the historical science has paid little attention to these phenomena until now and, if so, it was concerned with individual countries. A comparative analysis of dissent in politics and society and of the attempts to establish an autonomous culture in Eastern Europe is still missing.

The East European Research Center in Bremen in cooperation with partners in Poland, the Czech Republic, Russia and Hungary is preparing a project association, which intends to fill this gap, to make a major contribution to the comparative analysis of the “Other Eastern Europe”, and thus to co-initiate a new orientation of the study of contemporary history of the region. For this sake, research strategies have to be conceived that on the one hand exploit the possibilities of the newly opened archives and devise, on the other hand, analytic categories and theoretic approaches which are capable of explaining the complex, often contradictory development of the epoch after Stalin and before Gorbachev. Basic concepts such as those of “public sphere” and “autonomy”, which gained acceptance in the research of other epochs and social conditions, will have to be tested for their applicability to Soviet-type societies. This also holds true for the blurred dividing line between the areas of “public” and “private” and, above all, for the relationship between the spheres of “politics” and “culture”. The historical-political and the cultural approaches shall be coordinated, not only – as mostly in the past – merely juxtaposed with each other. For this purpose, a catalogue of questions shall be designed enabling a comparative analysis of individual threads of development without losing sight of their different cultural and historical contexts. Finally, in spite of the permanent conflict between dissent and authorities, we don´t intend to use dichotomizing models. Grey zones, transitions and the “migration” of ideas and people, which are so typical of the Soviet era, shall be also taken into account.

Four projects are planned in cooperation with the partner institutes in Eastern Europe in order to comparatively analyze the overlapping questions of dissent, contemporary history and culture:

1. Dissent in Politics and Societies,
2. Discourses of the Parallel Culture,
3. Biographies in Dissent and
4. Policies of Censorship

The first two projects are partly based on similar questions. “Dissent in Politics and Societies” will focus on gaining and defining autonomous positions, analyzing the system, the conception of autonomous strategies, the struggle for the “right to history”, and the relationship to Europe. The comparative analysis of different theoretical approaches of the dissidents to these questions in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary will allow insights into the special cultural traditions of these countries. The project “Discourses of the Parallel Culture” will lay stress on de-tabooing of history (World War II and Stalinism), the critical view of “real socialism”, the revival of cultural traditions suppressed by the regimes, and the self-assessment of the alternative cultures. It will deal both with literature and cultural journalism. The third project aims to review the biographies and careers of the dissidents in the East European countries. The main purpose of this contribution to the oral history of dissent will be discerning the turning points in the biographies and the self-reflections of the dissidents. Finally the project “Policies of Censorship” will cover one major strategy of the system towards the articulation of resistance and autonomy. The censorship policies define the public sphere from the point of view of the rulers, and the limits of what is still tolerable within this public sphere. At the same time, the very existence of censorship is the factor that has called the Samizdat into existence. The subject-matter will be primarily the cooperation of different censorship actors, the criteria of censorship and their source – the resolutions passed by leading party organs (above all, the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the communist party).

Further Information:

http://www.forschungsstelle-osteuropa.de

Contact:

Head of the Project:
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Eichwede
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