Constructing Memory in Pre-modern East Central and Southeast Europe: Creation, Transformation, and Oblivion
It has been a long way from the notion of collective memory discussed by Maurice Halbwachs to the manifold treatments of memory today. Recent works have elaborated on the specific conditions for constructing different kinds of memories under particular historical circumstances. Memory can be seen as a conscious means for stabilizing structures of political power by the ruling elites. Memory can also emerge spontaneously from other social groups which create and use memory for their own ends. Sub-conscious but powerful aspects of memory can arise from traumatic (or ordinary) experiences of individuals or groups.
The interest in memory is much more than a mere passing fashion or the interest of a certain generation of scholars. History relies on different forms of constructed memories; information about past societies is selected and transformed using different techniques of transmitting information. All historical sources represent cultural memory to some extent. Exploring the construction of memory is therefore nothing less than exploring the very sources of the historical sciences.
This workshop will broaden the traditional view of memory. Special emphasis will be put on the inherent mechanisms of constructing memory in certain places and/or the use of different cultural elements for creating or transforming memories. Discussions will address the social and cultural dynamics that go into the establishment, use, and dis-use of memory/memorials in East Central and Southeast Europe.
Presentations will be both papers and posters.
Conference Program
March 8, 2012 (Thursday)
Opening remarks: Katalin Szende, Head, Department of Medieval Studies
11:00 am-13:00 am Session 1: Echoes of Individuals, moderator: Marcell Sebők
Marianne Sághy:
“The Memory of the Saints in Late Antiquity: From the East to Rome and Beyond”
Balázs Nagy:
“Memories of the Self: The Autobiography of Charles IV in the Search for Medieval Memories”
Nada Zečević:
“A Family Profession: Italian Nobles Keeping and Recollecting Family Memories (Fifteenth to Twentieth Century)”
János Bak:
“The Folk Memory of Medieval Hungarian Kings”
Lunch break 13:00-14:00
14:00- 16:30 Session 2: Political Memory, moderator: Wojciech Kozlowski
Martin Homza:
“Constructing Memory on the Example of the Hungarian-Polish Chronicle”
Károly Goda:
“Whose Memory and Identity? The Metamorphoses of Corpus Christi in Fourteenth to Sixteenth Century Vienna”
Uladzimir Kananovich:
“Historical Memory and Political Power in Jagiellonian Europe (A Case Study of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania)”
Irma Karaulashvili:
“The Concept of Translatio Hierosolymi in Late Antique and Medieval Georgia”
Máté Zombory:
“Memory Studies and the Need for Oblivion”
Break
16:45-18:45 Session 3: Public Memory, moderator: Carsten Wilke
Marcell Sebők:
“The Renaissance Remembered: Commemorations in Modern-day Hungarian Public Spheres”
Borbála Lovas:
“The Jewish-Hungarian parallelism: Making Cultural Memory in the Sixteenth-Century Unitarian Community”
Fabrizio Conti:
“The Creation and Use of Memories in Preaching”
Anna Kuznetsova:
“Memorizing Holy Folly in Sixteenth century Russia”
19:30 Social hour at Grund café: a place of memory (welcome drink only for registered participants)
March 9, 2012 (Friday)
08:30-10:30 Session 4: Ecclesiastical Memory, moderator: Marianne Sághy
Aleksander Sroczyński:
“The Archdeacon’s Time. What Thomas of Split, the Archdeacon, Deemed Worthy of Memory?
Stefan Trajković-Filipović:
“Making the Readers Believe: Fictional Memory in The Annals of a Priest of Dioclea”
Trpimir Vedriš:
“Where was that Martyr Buried for the First Time? Memory as a Link between Hagiography and Land Property in Early Medieval Zadar”
Dávid Falvay:
“Personal Memory and Hagiographic Construction. Saint Guglielma: A Bohemian Princess or a Hungarian Queen?”
Break
11:00-13:00 Session 5: Artifactual Memory, moderator: Anna Kuznetsova
Ioan Albu:
“Memoriae sunt digni – The Epigraphic Memory of Kings, Princes and Voivodes in Medieval East-Central Europe”
Musa Ahmeti and Etleva Lala:
“Scanderbeg’s Grave”
Dóra Mérai:
“Memories Carved but not Cut in Stone: Funeral Monuments from the Transylvanian Principality”
Elena Cartaleanu:
“The Armenian Cemetery in the Collective Memory of Bessarabia”
Lunch break
14:00-15:00 Session 6: Post Communist Memory, moderator: Judith Rasson
Gábor Oláh:
“Performance of Memories in Conflict—Szabadság tér, Budapest”
Natasha Govedarica:
“Memory Politics in Serbia between 1991 and 2011: The State of the Uncertain Past”
15:15-17:00 Session 7: Past Memory in the Present, moderator: Vlad Naumescu
Darko Karačič and Slávka Otčenášová:
“Collective Memories Before and After the End of Socialism”
Crăiţa Curteanu:
“Second-Hand Stories: Prosthetic Memory and the Politics of Remembering Socialism through Material Culture in Bucharest”
Claudia Dobre:
“Vehicles of Memory: Monuments of Medieval Figures and the Construction of Romanian National Memory during Communism”
17:30 Keynote lecture by Stephen G. Nichols (Johns Hopkins University) at CEU Auditorium:
“Manuscript Memory: A Lost Latin Manuscript Constructs a Memory System for Vernacular Hagiography”
19:00 Dinner at Central Bistro (only for registered participants)
March 10, 2012 (Saturday)
09:00-12:00 Oblivion Fieldtrip (Memento Park Budapest): guided tour (only for registered participants)