Classics and Communism

Type: 
Book Launch
Audience: 
Open to the Public
Building: 
Nador u. 11
Room: 
Hanak Room
Friday, November 22, 2013 - 3:30pm
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Date: 
Friday, November 22, 2013 - 3:30pm to 4:30pm

The CEU Institute for Advanced Study cordially invites you to the book launch of 

Gnôthi seauton! Classics and Communism
The History of the Studies on Antiquity in the Context of the Local Classical Tradition in the Socialist Countries 1944/45-1989/90
Collegium Budapest, Workshop Series no. 19, 2012
Edited by György Karsai and Gábor Klaniczay

and an enlarged version of this same volume:

Classics and Communism
Greek and Latin behind the Iron Curtain
Edited by György Karsai, Gábor Klaniczay, David Movrin and Elzbieta Olechowska
Ljubjana-Budapest-Warsaw, 2013

The books will be presented by three editors: György Karsai, Gábor Klaniczay and David Movrin.

The volumes Classics and Communism are the outcomes of a focus group project at Collegium Budapest in 2009-2010 convened by Jerzy Axer, György Karsai and Gábor Klaniczay and sponsored by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. 

The project aimed to discover and explore the history of classical philology after World War II in what was then considered the camp of socialist countries. Classical studies were explored in the following countries: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany, the Soviet Union (Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine) and Yugoslavia (Serbia, Slovenia). The studies discuss five themes: 1) there were some classical scholars who played an active role in the implantation of the new Communist ideology in their countries, while some others could preserve a leading position even without making such open ideological affiliation to the regime; 2) the more complex reality is illustrated by the curriculum of a selection of eminent classical scholars; 3) we also examined the history of some institutions which were representing the requirements of the Communist ideological system even in the field of classical philology and some others, which helped the preservation of classical scholarship from abroad; 4) for the majority of the ‘craft’ these were four decades of marginalisation (losing their university and academy positions), and outright persecution in these time by the authorities of their country; 5) three examples (from Slovenia, the Soviet Union and from Hungary) show how this repression was practiced by the sercet services.

The presenters:

György Karsai is a classical philologist, head of the Department of Classical Philology, University PTE Pécs, who graduated from ELTE Budapest in Classical Greek philology, Latin philology and Indology. He has taught abroad at: Université de Lille III, Département des Langues Anciennes (2002-2008), Université Paris X Nanterre, Département du Grec (1990-1991), Université de Caen, Département du Grec (1998-2000), Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg, Département du Grec (1992-1994), and at École Normale Supérieure, Paris, rue d’Ulm (1995). His extensive publications, especially on Homer, have appeared in domestic and foreign fora in a variety of languages.

Gábor Klaniczay is a professor at the Department of Medieval Studies at the Central European University (CEU), Budapest. Between 1997-2002 and in 2008 he served as rector of Collegium Budapest — Institute for Advanced Study, and remained there as Permanent Fellow until 2011. His books include The Uses of Supernatural Power. The Transformations of Popular Religion in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge/Princeton, 1990); Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses. Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe (Cambridge, 2002); Witchcraft Mythologies and Persecutions (ed. with Éva Pócs; Budapest, 2008); Multiple Antiquities — Multiple Modernities. Ancient Histories in Nineteenth Century European Cultures (ed. with Michael Werner; Frankfurt and New York, 2011); Manufacturing the Middle Ages. Entangled History of Medievalism in Nineteenth-Century Europe (ed. with Patrick Geary; Leiden, 2013).

David Movrin graduated in Latin and Greek at the University of Ljubljana. He holds an MA in Medieval Studies from the CEU in Budapest and a PhD in Classical Philology from the University of Ljubljana. He is currently translating Classics and teaching at the Department of Classical Philology in Ljubljana. He has published a monograph on the history of translation from Greek and Latin (2010), worked on the publication of the Latin-Slovenian Dictionary in six volumes (1999-2007), and translated and adapted a set of high school and university level Latin textbooks and workbooks, based on a variety of unabridged Latin texts (2008-2011). His monograph Izviri meništva [Sources of Monasticism, 2011] centres on the relationship between pagan and Christian biography in Late Antiquity.