Spaces of Experience and Horizons of Expectation: Eastern European Diasporas During the Cold War

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Spaces of Experience and Horizons of Expectation: Eastern European Diasporas During the Cold War

Organizer
Aleksander Brückner Center for Polish Studies at the Universities of Halle-Wittenberg and Jena (research project “Phantom Borders in East Central Europe”, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research), in cooperation with the Chair for South-East European History at Humboldt University, Berlin
Venue
Institut für Geschichte, Emil-Abderhalden-Str. 26-27, Seminarraum 5/Hallischer Saal, Universitätsring 5, 06108 Halle (Saale)
Location
Halle an der Saale
Country
Germany
From - Until
23.11.2016 - 25.11.2016
Deadline
18.11.2016
Website
http://www.aleksander-brueckner-zentrum.org; http://phantomgrenzen.eu/
By
Struve, Kai

After World War II large groups of emigrants from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe remained in western countries. They included former forced laborers in the Third Reich, POWs, inmates of concentration camps, and people who had fled from the advancing Soviet Army. Those among these so-called ‘Displaced Persons’ who did not return to their home countries during the first post-war years represented the most important field of recruitment of political activists of the East and South-East European diasporas in the emerging ’Western World’.
Inquiring into the history of East European diasporas may help to open new perspectives on the history of the Cold War. Individual emigrants and emigrant organizations were among the most exposed participants in the growing conflict between East and West. Some diaspora activists cooperated with Western intelligence services, including covert operations behind the “Iron Curtain”. Others attracted public attention due to their radically anti-communist commitment, or to their alleged involvement in collaboration with Nazi Germany.
Moreover, the study of the East European diasporas promises new insights into the political, cultural, and societal history of the Cold War. The diaspora experiences transgressed the East-West divide in several respects: Their biographies were largely shaped through experiences from beyond the "Iron Curtain", and their political activities primarily aimed at changing conditions in their countries of origin. On the one hand, they represented the “East” in the “West” and, on the other hand, in the “East”, often they were considered representing particularly dangerous "agents" of Western Cold War politics. They were a part of Western societies and participated in their political and cultural change. At the same time, they were related to the East more closely than others. In that sense, the East European diasporas were, in a way, at the center of an entangled history of East and West during the Cold War.
The aim of the conference is to investigate which insights the history of the diasporas provides for the political, cultural, and societal history of the Cold War era.

Programm

Wednesday, 23 November 2016

venue: Emil-Abderhalden-Str. 26-27, room E. 61 (seminar room 5)

16:30 – 17:15
Welcome and Introduction
Yvonne Kleinmann, Nenad Stefanov, Kai Struve

17:15 – 18:45
Diasporas and the Legacy of Fascism and Nazi Collaboration
Chair: Kai Struve

Andrej Kotljarchuk, Huddinge: National Heroes, Fighters for Europe? Belarusian Waffen-SS and Belarusian Home Defence Veterans and their Legacy in the West during the Cold War

Per Anders Rudling, Singapore: Mykola Lebed, the Ukrainian Main Liberation Council’s Representation Abroad, and the CIA: an Entangled Past

Yurii Radchenko, Kharkiv: OUN(M) and the Holocaust: A Case Study of Ivan Iuriïv

19.00 Reception

Thursday, 24 November 2016

venue: Hallischer Saal, “Burse zur Tulpe”, Universitätsring 5

9:00 – 11:15
East-West Relations and the Diasporas
Chair: N.N.

Cécile Vaissié, Rennes: “Displaced Persons” at the Kravchenko Trial (1949): Testimonials vs. Ideology

Sławomir Łukasiewicz, Lublin: State Politics of the People's Republic of Poland toward the Polish Cold War Exile in the West – A Framework for Research

Mate Nikola Tokič, Budapest: Cold War Politics and Emigré Croatian Separatist Violence, 1950-1980

Matthias Thaden, Berlin: Securitizing the Croatian Diaspora. Transnational Activism and its Impact on Political Discourses and Practices in West Germany

11:45 –13:30
Crossing Borders
Chair: Paulina Gulińska-Jurgiel

Ondrej Vojtechovsky, Prague: On the Other Side of the Iron Curtain. Political Exiles from Yugoslavia and Italy to Czechoslovakia in the 1950s

Ieva Zake, Ewing, NJ: Emigré Tourism to Soviet Latvia: Who Subverted Whom?

Jannis Panagiotidis/Hans-Christian Petersen, Osnabrück/Oldenburg: German Landsmannschaften as Diaspora – the Case of Russian Germans

Aigi Rahi-Tamm, Tartu: Conceivable Dialogues between the Deportees and Refugees from Estonia

15:15-17:30
Cooperation among Diasporas
Chair: Yvonne Kleinmann

Jan-Hinnerk Antons, Hamburg: The „Anti-Bolshevic Bloc of Nations“: Key Witness of Anti-Communism

Martin Nekola, Prague: Czechoslovak Exile after 1948: Activities, Problems and International Cooperation

Pauli Heikkilä, Tartu: Captured Europeans and European Unification. The Panel Studies (1954)

Jan Jacek Bruski, Kraków: Doomed to Conflict or Doomed to Cooperate? Polish-Ukrainian Exile Contacts at the Initial Stage of the Cold War

Friday, 25 November 2016

9:15-12:00
Culture and the Cold War
Chair: Nenad Stefanov

Olena Petrenko, Bochum: “Secret Fronts“. Representations of the Ukrainian Diaspora in Soviet Films during the Cold War

Anna Artwińska, Leipzig: Discussions among the Diaspora. Pavel Tigrid’s View of the Cold War in Kapesní průvodce inteligentní ženy po vlastním osudu (1988)

10:30-10:45 Coffee break

Vladislava Warditz, Jena/Potsdam: The Cold War from a Linguistic Perspective: Linguistic Attitudes among the Diaspora and Dissidents as a Means of Anti-Totalitarian Resistance

Stephanie Zloch, Braunschweig: Experiences for the Future? Schools and Education among the Eastern European Diasporas in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1945

12:30-13:30
Concluding Discussion

Contact (announcement)

Kai Struve

Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg Aleksander Brückner Center for Polish Studies/Institute of
History, Emil-Abderhalden-Str. 26-27, D-06108 Halle (Saale)

kai.struve@geschichte.uni-halle.de

http://www.aleksander-brueckner-zentrum.org; http://phantomgrenzen.eu/
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Published on
04.11.2016
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