International Conference organised by Institute for Studies of the Recent Past and Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société, Sofia with the support of East – East Program: Partnership Beyond Borders and the French Embassy, Sofia
The Silence about Communism in Central and Southeastern Europe:
18 years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall
December 01 – 02, 2007 Sofia
Arena di Serdica Hotel
December 01, Saturday
09.30 – 10.00 Opening address by Ivaylo Znepolski, Director of the Institute and Lenko Lenkov, co-founder.
1st Panel: How does the Communist State Function?
10.00 – 10.30 Roumen Daskalov (New Bulgarian University, Sofia): ‘People’s Democracy’ as a Conceptual Affair
10.30 – 11.00 Mihail Gruev (Sofia University): Collectivization in Bulgaria as a Social and Demographic Cataclysm
11.00 – 11.30 Alexander Vezenkov (Sofia) On a New BCP History
11.30 – 12.0 Discussion
12.00 – 12.30 Momchil Metodiev (Christianity and Culture Journal, Sofia) State Security as an Institutional Tool for Communist Political Legitimization
12.30 – 13.00 Anne Marie Losonczy (L’École pratique des hautes études, Brussels) Silence or Creak: Musical Dramatization of Communism in the House of Terror, Budapest
13.00 – 13.30 Discussion
13.30 – 14.30 Lunch Break
2nd Panel: To Live in Communism
14.30 – 15.00 Daniela Koleva (Sofia University) Biography Narratives and Memory about Communism
15.00 – 15.30 Georgi Gospodinov (Institute for Literature, Sofia) Collecting the Absent: Everyday Stories and Objects from the Communist Times
15.30 – 16.00 Francoise Mayer (L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris) The Image of the State Security Agents and Informers in the Czech Public Space after 1989
16.00 – 16.30 Discussion
16.30 – 17.00 Coffee Break
17.00 – 17.30 Ivan Elenkov (Sofia University) Cultural Policy of the Real Socialism
17.30 – 18.00 Deyan Deyanov (Plovdiv University) Economy of the Symbolic Deficit
18.00 – 18.30 Mikhail Ryklin (Institute for Philosophy, Moscow) The Debate about Communism in Post-Soviet Russia. Why is so Difficult to Deconstruct Communism?
18.30 – 19.00 Discussion
December 02, Sunday
4th Panel: The Political Economy of Communism: Economy of Shortage
09.00 – 09.30 Martin Ivanov (History Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) Reformation without Reforms. Political Economy of Bulgarian Communism (1963 – 1989)
09.30 – 10.00 Daniel Vachkov (History Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) Bulgaria and the Financial Problems of the Socialist Bloc
10.00 – 10.30 Roumen Avramov (Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia) The Terminal Economic Crisis of Bulgarian Communism from the Perspective of the ‘informed elites’ and their critics
10.30 – 11.0 Discussion
11.00 – 11.30 Coffee Break
11.30 – 12.00 Ivaylo Znepolski (Institute for Studies of the Recent Past, Sofia) Social Policy of the Communist Regime from a Comparative Perspective
12.00 – 12.30 Pawel Sowinski (Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw) Polish Shopping Tourism to the Black Sea Coast and Shortage Culture 1956-1970
12.30 – 13.00 Emilia Karaboeva (Technological Universty, Eindhoven) The Invisible Faces of the Socialist Everyday Life: the International Track-drivers Case
13.00 – 13.30 Discussion
13.30 – 15.00 Lunch
5th Panel: Communism: Repression and Resistance
15.00 – 15.30 Ruxandra Ivan (Institute for Investigation of the Communist Crimes in Romania) The Party-State Relationship. The Case of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Romania, 1946 – 1953
15.30 – 16.00 Gabor Gyani (Institute of History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest) Revolution, Uprising, Civil War. The Conceptual Dilemmas of 1956
16.00 – 16.30 Boris Popivanov (“Ivan Hadjiyski” Institute for Social Values & Structures, Sofia) The Hungarian 1956 from Bulgarian Perspective – Historical and Political Recourses
16.30 – 17.00 Plamen Doynov (New Bulgarian University) Hungarian Autumn in Bulgaria: Literary Representations and Intellectual Reflections on ’56
17.00 – 17.30 Discussion
17.30 – 18.00 Closing