How We Remember. The Memory of Communism – Its Forms, Manifestations, Meanings

The thirtieth anniversary of the events that took place in 1989 is an appropriate opportunity not only for research of and discussions about the developments which resulted in the fall of the Central and Eastern European Communist regimes in the end of the 1980s, but also for focusing attention on how the memory of Communism has been developing and transforming in the last three decades and how reflections of the Communist past have been influencing the development since 1989.

The objective of the international conference, organized by the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Goethe-Institut in Prague, is to examine and discuss forms, manifestations, and meanings of the memory of Communist regimes in various shapes and environments from a broad transnational perspective. The conference will be attended by many leading experts from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Russian Federation, and Estonia. The conference will focus, in particular, on:

• reflections of Communism in the public, political, and professional discourse
• forms of treatment of the Communist past in the public space
• connections between reflections of Communism and the development of new democratic social identities
• memory of Communism in art, literature, and cinematography
• transformations of the individual memory of Communism

The event is part of the international series: 1989. Changes & Challenges. The conference will be held in English and Czech/Slovak and simultaneously translated into Czech and English.

The event starts on September 17 at 9AM in the Goethe-Institut in Prague (Masarykovo nábřeží 32, Praha 1).

Participants are kindly asked to register by e-mail kafkovab(at)usd.cas.cz, or phone +420 257 286 344.