REPORT ON PROCEEDINGS 1

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1 REPORT ON PROCEEDINGS 1 BORDER COMMUNITIES: MICROSTUDIES ON EVERYDAY LIFE, POLITICS AND MEMORY IN EUROPEAN SOCIETIES FROM 1945 TO THE PRESENT. by Iris Obernhummer, Student Research Assistant, LBI-EHP Recruitment writers workshop for the second phase of the project at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for ; Vienna, October 2010 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The workshop was made possible by the generous support of the consortium of research institutions for contemporary history EurHistXX, VENUE Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for (LBI-EHP) Nussdorferstrasse 64, 4 th floor. A-1090 Vienna, Austria Tel.: Fax: PARTICIPANTS Muriel Blaive, LBI EHP Ulf Brunnbauer, University of Regensburg Astrid M. Eckert, Emory University, Atlanta Thomas Lindenberger, Director, LBI EHP Libora Oates-Indruchová, LBI EHP Iris Obernhummer, LBI EHP Alena Pfoser, Loughborough University Mark Pittaway, Open University (In Memoriam) Sagi Schaefer, Columbia University Lavinia Stan, Babeş Bolyai University Barnabás Vajda, János Selye University Machteld Venken, Catholic University of Leuven Tatiana Zhurzhenko, University of Vienna 1 The report is based on personal notes and on material from the workshop participants (presentation slides, notes). I am grateful to the participants of the workshop for providing their materials. A-1090 Wien, Nussdorfer Strasse 64, 4th Floor, Austria Tel+43 (0) , Fax+43 (0) office@ehp.lbg.ac.at, An Institute of Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft GmbH, Nussdorfer Strasse 64, 6th Floor, A-1090 Wien, Austria FN p Handelsgericht Wien ATU DVR

2 Affiliated researchers not in attendance: Roger Engelmann, Office of the Federal Commissioner, Germany; Gabriela Ghindea, Babes Bolyai University; Jakub Grygar, independent researcher; Friederike Kind-Kovács, University of Regensburg; Sabina Mihelj, Loughborough University, Daniela Münkel, Office of the Federal Commissioner, Germany. The purpose of the workshop was to create a network of researchers working on border studies in Central and Eastern Europe with a view of a common publication project that would go to print by late The publication(s) will bring together the research findings generated within the project Border Communities conducted at LBI EHP since 2006 and other similarly focused projects conducted at other institutions. For detailed programme and abstracts, see Programme of the workshop. WORKSHOP OPENING Thomas Lindenberger, Muriel Blaive and Libora Oates-Indruchová from the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for introduced the Border Communities project. The main point was a re-focusing of the Border Communities project. The conclusion of the first phase of the project has been that Cold War is a western concept that has not proved relevant to the inhabitants of the Central and East European border regions. The study on the Austrian-Czech Border conducted by Muriel Blaive and Berthold Molden showed that Cold War could be applied in Gmünd (on the Western side ), but not in České Velenice (on the Eastern side ). 2 Cold War was perceived as abstract and not manifest in the memories of the interviewees. Another problem that arose was that the media analysis that was built into the project s methodology during its first phase with the purpose of reconstructing the public opinion did not really work, because Party-controlled and censored media cannot inform on the public opinion, in this these media are not comparable with the western media. On the whole, the media comparison only made sense on the German/German border, where the difference between the ideological usage of the same language could be studied; this was, of course, not possible, in the studies where a different language was spoken on each side of the border. For these reasons the project will change its focus in its second phase: from now on the focus will be on microhistory and everyday life, bottom-up perspective, rather than on Cold War. Another new aspect is that the project will move away from outsourcing researchers who work within detailed methodological specifications, to creating a looser network of researchers: an interdisciplinary investigation of border regions/communities should be the connecting approach. 2 See Blaive, Muriel and Molden, Berthold Grenzfälle. Österreichische und tschechische Erfahrungen am Eisernen Vorhang, Weitra: Bibliothek der Provinz. This book was also published in Czech as: Blaive, Muriel and Molden, Berthold Hranice probíhají vodním tokem. Odrazy historie ve vnímání obyvatel Gmündu a Českých Velenic, Barrister & Principal. 2

3 PROJECT PRESENTATIONS I: BORDER REGIMES AND THE POLITICS OF EVERYDAY LIFE The late Mark Pittaway, Senior Lecturer at the Open University, opened the first session of presentations. He talked about his research on Dividing Europe on the Austrian- Hungarian border: from shared borderland to Cold War divide, He started the project in 2004, recognizing that the literature on this topic had been either biased or conceived exclusively in terms of diplomatic history. One of his aims was to understand the process of separation and the main question was What is borderland and how is it produced? The region where he was conducting his research is the Northern Burgenland in Austria and Moson and Sopron counties in Western Hungary. His main aim was to produce a history of this borderland, considering Cold War perspectives from below on the one hand, and the relationship to the Second World War and post-war on the other. His main research question was how different states and their territorializing and legitimizing ideologies shaped or failed to shape discrete populations through the production of the borderland. Sagi Schaefer s (Columbia University) current research project is titled reflects the Division in practice/practicing division: Rural life and the creation of East and West in the Werra Valley. He is at the beginning of his research, so his presentation was a summary of his leading questions and expectations. His research deals with the development of the inter- German border in a rural periphery focusing on a short strip of the border between Hessen and Thuringia (US and Soviet Zones, respectively) after World War II. The social and geographical conditions in this region were not conducive of border formation. Therefore and because of the extensive interdependencies, border formation was prolonged and depended on the development of social and physical barriers. Schaefer s aim in this project is to study and analyze the way borders emerge and develop. His main claim is that research has so far not paid much attention to the importance of rural conditions for these processes. He thinks those are important because, compared to urban environments, border construction was slower and weaker in this area. Over time East and West were produced there as well. His study will highlight the important implications of rural life, the central role of agriculture, and daily practices related to it for the emergence of social divisions along politically determined border lines. Barnabás Vajda, lecturer at Selye J. University, talked about the Thawing of the border regime in Komárno/Komárom. His research, which was a cooperation within the first phase of the Border Communities project of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for European History and Public Spheres, is finished now, and in late 2010 (or early 2011) the Selye J. University will publish a monograph on the Komárno/Komárom case, whose contributors include Muriel Blaive, and researchers from the Slovak and the Hungarian Academies of Sciences. Vajda pointed out that the Komárno/Komárom case has raised interest almost exclusively because of the national tensions between Hungarians and Slovaks. Despite this Vajda is much more interested in the historical dimensions of the case, such as everyday reality during communism in a particular border zone. In the discussion on the publication possibilities and accepting some consequent ideas from LBI team members, Vajda pointed out that he would be glad to write either a comprehensive study on the Komárno/Komárom case, or could make some additional archival research focusing on the everyday aspect of the case, e.g., border regime, smuggling etc. 3

4 In the Discussion on these three topics the main question was whether the impact of the Cold War has to be relativized. Another question was how much of a factor smuggling was, especially in Mark Pittaway s research. The discussants agreed that the issue of agency and interest in border formation should also be studied. In this context Sagi Schaefer added that the category of state seems more relevant than that of the nation and the role of state organizations should be looked at. PROJECT PRESENTATIONS II: PERIPHERIES AND DIASPORAS Astrid M. Eckert from Emory University in Atlanta presented her research on The East of the West: The image problem of the West German borderlands, which is part of a book project. During the early postwar years, the demarcation line between West and East Germany was still relatively open, a typical green border, criss-crossed by commuters, migrants, smugglers and their goods. In 1952, East German authorities made an effort to seal the demarcation line and turn it into a veritable border. This hastened the emergence of borderlands on the western side of the Iron Curtain. In West Germany, these borderlands became known as Zonenrandgebiet. They quickly displayed a myriad of economic problems, including loss of businesses, out-migration of skilled workers, and a general lack of competitiveness due to a weak traffic infrastructure. The states adjacent to the border as well as the border counties therefore soon petitioned the federal government for state subsidies. In 1953, they succeeded and were henceforth considered Notstandsgebiete, or calamity zones, a classification that entitled them to subsidies. In order to obtain and retain this status, borderland officials argued not in economic but in political terms. The border regions, they held, had been victimized by the Iron Curtain; the rest of the country was therefore obligated to help them. Libora Oates-Indruchová, a researcher in the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for European History and Public Spheres, is currently starting a project on Border narratives of a newly created periphery (Czech-Slovak border). The Velvet Divorce of Czechoslovakia, the creation of two successor states in 1993 and the subsequent erection of a new inter-state border present the key moments for the study. The research foci will be the effects of the new border on people s private lives; memories and perceptions of the physical borders and of the consequences of the EU accession. Methods and project outline will roughly follow the other case studies conducted at LBI EHP so far and will include individual and group/family interviews and mental mapping (how people conceive of border spaces). Social and economic affects of the border (pre- and post-schengen) will also be investigated. Alena Pfoser from Loughborough University researches The meaning of the border in lifestory narratives of Russians living in Narva. Her method includes interviews with Russians living in Narva. The town of Narva belongs to Estonia, but is mainly Russian populated. During the Second World War it was destroyed and afterwards populated by Russian newcomers. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the declaration of independence of Estonia a new border between Russia and Estonia appeared and in consequence a new borderland was created. The main research questions are: How have the Russian people of Narva experienced the changes? How have they integrated into the Estonian space? How have they constructed social space before, during and after Estonia regained independence? 4

5 Narva symbolizes the problems of integration of the Russian speaking community into the new state of Estonia. As the first interview analyses show there is a tendency that the Russia inhabitants do not want to learn Estonian, they even do not see any sense in it. In their feelings they belong to Russia, but they are aware of not belonging to the majority society in Estonia and therefore they feel isolated. The border became an important event in their life stories, but had not the same effects on everybody it depends on what citizenship they have (factor for travelling) and where their relatives live (if they are in Russia, in Narva or elsewhere). Machteld Venken is a researcher at the Catholic University of Leuven (KULeuven). She is at the beginning of her postdoctoral research project the working title is War Memories. Border Regions, Children and Migrants in Europe ( ). It is a case study comparing the East Cantons in Belgium and a part of the historical East Prussia region (Warmia and Mazury) in Poland. Both regions were under German rule during the Second World War and experienced re-nationalization campaigns afterwards. The study will concentrate on processes of giving meaning to war experiences. The approach is to investigate children s memories, because they are crucial for the construction of post war societies at the border. Some of these children went into the region after the war, some of them were already there, when their region moved to another country. Therefore, also looking to migration is important. The research will explore the children s experiences of the war, their early postwar memories of the war, and look for influences of re-nationalisation politics on these memories. The hypothesis is that children are significant in historiography, because they are more adaptive to war ideology than adults and switch easier to a new one afterwards. To access memories of children, Machteld Venken will work with early postwar documents containing testimonies of children and compare them with new interviews with the child writers. The children should be born within the years 1930 to In the Discussion of this section the question arose if there was a discourse of nostalgia at some borders, as it emerged in the research by Tatiana Zhurzhenko, who worked on the Ukrainian-Polish borderland. Libora Oates-Indruchová observed this to some extent at the Slovak border in relation to the regret that Czechoslovakia split up. Muriel Blaive and Barnabás Vajda did not have such comments in their interviews in Komárom/Komárno. It needs to be investigated whether there was a popular support for the border and which people wanted the border. In the Czech/Slovak case the popular sentiment was opposed to the separation (that s why the politicians did not announce a referendum), in the Gmünd/České Velenice investigations (Austria/Czech) some wanted the border and some not. With the Komárom/Komárno border the people were not at any time happy with. Another question was about the state funding of the West-German borderlands. Mark Pittaway said that this was interesting, because the Burgenland in Austria, which had a comparable case, refused to consider/classify its border regions as a Notstandsgebiet. One answer related to a general difference between Austria and Germany: Austria did not have an East-Austria as its immediate other. Another reason could be a certain degree of denial of the existence of the border in West Germany: why did the locals not simply move away like they did in Burgenland, but stayed and petitioned the state for support. 5

6 In this regard Sagi Schaefer also wondered what exactly happened with these investments. Astrid Eckert s answer was that local authorities massively invested into public infrastructure, from roads to swimming pools etc. PROJECT PRESENTATIONS III: RE-BORDERING OF MEMORIES, RE-BORDERING IN MEMORIES. The third session started with the presentation of Ulf Brunnbauer from the University of Regensburg. He talked about the project Entangled memories on the border: (Not) remembering the Cold War on the Bulgarian-Turkish border, which is being developed for a PhD position application. The special features of this area are that it is a region with three borders Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece and that it was a very militarized border. It is ideologically charged to investigate the salients of the Cold War in local memories as the main questions are: What role does the Cold War play in the memories on both sides? How and in what narrative frames is life in a militarized border region in authoritarian political systems recalled? To what extent are the memories grounded in the events of national history that relate to the history of the neighbouring country and to nationally traumatic events? Does the Cold War period constitute a part of the memories of living in a politically sensitive region bordering a neighbour who is often demonized in national history? What is the relationship between collective (public) and communicative (private) memory and how do they impact on each other? Do local individuals and families produce narratives which challenge the dominant national(ist) ones? The hypotheses are that the local memories attribute very few salients to the Cold War; dramatic episodes of national histories have more effect on the individual and family memory (mostly if a family has a background in one of the other countries). Cultural and communicative memory interact: national history tries to link to communicative memory and vice versa. What Ulf Brunnbauer tries to find in his research is if there is any important role of elements of national history also in private memory. The methods of research are individual and family interviews (oral history, with locals), investigation of the media (focus on local media, on certain events). A point of interest will be guest workers, those working in Germany/Austria, who had to cross this border often, so there was quite a bit of exchange at the border. He tries to link local history to national history and to show the entanglement of history of the border, which produces an entangled memory. Muriel Blaive, a researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for European History and Public Spheres, talked about Changing generational identities on the Hungarian-Slovak border. The field research was conducted in Komárom and Komárno (the Komárom part was conducted by Barnabás Vajda), which were at one point in history one town, but were divided by a state border into a Slovak and a Hungarian part. Therefore Komárno is a mixed area where the main issue of research turned out to be the language difference. The findings suggest that the young (Hungarian) generation hardly speaks Slovak, in the town they do not have any Slovak friends (or if they do, the Slovaks speak Hungarian). Komárno Hungarians see themselves as different from Slovaks, but also different from Hungarians in Hungary. They feel a certain loyalty to their town and to Komárom, but not to Bratislava or Budapest. The main research questions were to deconstruct and analyze the general differences between today s Hungarians in their approach to their common life with Slovaks in their hometown, their loyalties to Slovakia and Hungary, their cultural and linguistic heritage and the ways to preserve it, as well as their relations with Slovaks in general and Hungarians from Hungary. 6

7 Tatiana Zhurzhenko is a researcher at the University of Vienna and her project is on Memory wars and reconciliation in the Ukrainian-Polish borderlands: (Geo)politics of memory from a local perspective. The main idea in this research is to look at the process of constructing a new border: how people live near this border, how they make sense of the border in everyday life. In regard to this there is a focus more on identity and memory politics in the border regions: politics of memory at the regional level, investigation of the role of local political actors, such as, ethnic associations, NGOs, or cultural projects. Further questions are how memory politics functions at local and regional levels and how it affects Polish-Ukrainian relations. The circumstances are that the collective memory in Ukraine is affected by an anti-soviet resistance (it was always an oppositional region), but also an opposition to Kiev, and the fact that regional elites cannot compete with East-European Soviet elites. For all this the population is highly mobilized and nationalized. The Discussion on the issues raised in this last section turned around the question of memories in border regions. The first inquiry was about the role played by the Ukrainian Institute for National Remembrance according to Tatiana Zhuzhenko, the Institute does not have the importance it would be expected to have. The main idea behind this Institute was to have an institution that would take care of the history of the communist regime; the Institute has control over the archives and published research based on the archive, but it does not really work. The second question pertained to the Komárno/Komárom border and whether there was a memory of international events, such as the construction of the Berlin Wall or the Jewish- Palestine conflicts. The answer was that there were hardly any comments in the interviews on these issues, but a lot of mentions of the Treaty of Trianon. The interviewees felt that they are affected by this even though they were not alive at that time. Concerning the presentation by Ulf Brunnbauer the question was raised whether the situation on the Bulgarian-Turkish border was a different situation than in other border regions after 1945, because there had always been a border. The answer was that the situation also changed in this region because before 1945 it was a relatively open border, afterwards it became a highly militarized zone with a closed area, a special border regime etc. A general point of concern for all this researches on border regions is to what extent the end of the Cold War affected the border, because in most cases not the border, but the end of the Cold War changed the system in the whole of Europe and the question is to what extent this was important for the border regions. Another important thing is how does the fact of national contestation play a role in border regions. The Komárom/Komárno case stand outs regarding the point what part the border plays in the interviewees minds: the term border is only a language term, the population of this region place themselves in a kind of special in-betweenland. 7

8 WORKSHOP CONCLUSIONS AND PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE The main questions of all three sessions turned around the following issues: 1. borders in relation to state-making (borders as a practical way creating states: how states are made or unmade, regimes and politics in everyday life); 2. how borders and bordering produce some actors and how active their involvements are (borders were erected and these actors have to adjust to that); and 3. memory politics and borders as closely related topics. The suggestion was to continue with this kind of structure in the discussion within the network and in future research. Practical matters (status as of 12 November 2010): Relating to the practical things/the output of the workshop there is a firm intention to publish the results of the various studies. There are two main options: an edited volume or journal articles (special sections or a special journal issue). The idea of an edited volume has been put on hold for now, mainly due to the uneven stage of research of the projects. The same applies to a special journal issue. The best option seems a series of special sections (3-4 articles per section) in a good peer-reviewed journal. Current suggestions are: Contemporary European History: contact with Holger Nehring established (actually, he just asked about our status); Nationalities Papers: Ulf Brunnbauer mediated contact with Florian Bieber; Journal of Social History (Mark Pittaway was exploring that venue, so given the sad circumstances, we will probably pursue the first two options first). The conditions and process in CEH and NP are similar: they need proposal for the sections and 3-4 articles per section. LBI EHP will be in touch concerning future developments. The network: We will make every effort to organise a follow-up meeting in spring. Then we should meet already over drafts of the first articles. We will also create mailing list / discussion forum for the network, to which notifications of relevant events, news etc. can be sent. 8