East-Central Europe Past and Present

2011-12-18T11:28:00.000-08:00

Interview with Joachim von Puttkamer, Professor of East European History at the Friedrich Schiller University and co-director of the Imre Kertész Kolleg in Jena, Germany. Interview conducted in Jena, Germany on December 6, 2011.

Professor von Puttkamer is the author of a number of books and articles, including a monograph on schooling in Hungary 1867-1914 (Schulalltag und nationale Integration in Ungarn: Slowaken, Rumänen und Siebenbürger Sachsen in der Auseinandersetzung mit der ungarischen Staatsidee, 1867-1914) published in 2003, and a synthetic overview of East-Central European history and historiography in the 19th and 20th centuries (Ostmitteleuropa im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert) in 2010.

Interview Themes

Puttkamer's path to the study of East-Central Europe and his first monograph on the regulation of factories in pre-revolutionary Russia (2:22)

How contemporary politics in Germany have influenced the study of East-Central Europe (11:10)

Strengths and weaknesses of Anglo-American, German, and East-Central European academic cultures and historiographies compared (16:42)

Relationship between those who study Western Europe and those who study East-Central Europe -- is there a "European" historiography? (25:00)

Why aren't East-Central Europeanists writing broader European histories? (32:45)

On the origins and activities of the Imre Kertész Kolleg (38:40)

How Puttkamer views his own role as a historian of this region (47:52)

The most exciting work in the field; opportunities and challenges (56:35)

To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/28222

2011-01-09T10:33:00.001-08:00

Interview with Taner Akcam, Associate Professor of History at Clark University's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on November 8, 2010.

Professor Akcam is the author of A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, published by Metropolitan Press in 2006.

Interview Themes

How Akcam came to be a scholar of genocide (00:47)
Why the study of genocide has been so prevalent and controversial of the past 20 years (10:12)

Akcam's arrest and the issues that brought him into politics in the 1970s (16:09)
How Akcam saw the Turkish state in the 1970s (20:48)
Early responses to the work of Akcam on the Armenian issue (26:12)
Retrospective view of the aspirations of the student movement of the 1960s and 1970s in Turkey (30:08)
The next generation of intellectuals in Turkey and elsewhere and their relationship to ideology (34:53)
The impact of the current preoccupation with memory on contemporary politics (42:20)
Dangers of the politics of grievance (48:08)
Akcam's interest in writing about Islam (54:13)
Aspects of Turkish national consciousness that historians should concern themselves with (1:01:28)
To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/21954

2010-10-30T13:21:00.000-07:00

Interview with Steven A. Barnes, Associate Professor of History at George Mason University. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on October 19, 2010.

Professor Barnes is the author of the book Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society, which is forthcoming from Princeton University Press in 2011. Barnes is also the author of a website on the history of the gulag called Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives.

Interview Themes

How Barnes came to be interested in the gulag (00:57)
The evolution of Barnes's gulag project (04:12)
The argument of Barnes's forthcoming book and how it will likely be received (18:32)
Most interesting and exciting directions in Soviet historiography now (32:10)
To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/21953

2010-10-11T08:26:00.000-07:00

Interview with Nikolay Koposov, research director at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies in Finland and former dean of the Smolny college of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Saint-Petersburg State University (1998-2009). Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on October 7, 2010.

Prof. Koposov has written on early modern France, approaches to history, and the politics of historical memory in Russia. His works have been published in French and Russian, including most recently a French translation of his 2001 book originally published in Russian, How Historians Think (De l'imagination historique).

Interview Themes

The contours of the historical profession in the USSR in the 1970s (01:49)
Koposov's path to the study of history (08:03)
Political implications of doing social history in the USSR in the 1970s (13:10)
Political shifts in the Soviet Union in the 1980s and the 1990s as reflected in the historical profession (16:45)
Koposov's cohort of like-minded historians (26:24)
Retrospective perspective on the period preceding the collapse of the Soviet Union (28:33)
On the collapse of communism from a historian's perspective (32:33)
Hopes and apsirations for St. Petersburg State in the 1990s (38:30)
The fate of St. Petersburg State from its founding until now (42:23)
Scholars who influenced Koposov (49:32)
To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/21952

2010-10-11T08:04:00.000-07:00

Interview with Elizabeth McGuire, Ph.D. UC Berkeley (2010) and currently academy scholar at the Harvard Academy of International and Area Studies. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on September 30, 2010.

The title of Dr. McGuire's book manuscript is "The Sino-Soviet Romance: How Chinese Communists Fell in Love with Russia, Russians, and the Russian Revolution."

Interview Themes

How McGuire came to her dissertation topic (00:43)

How the macro links to the micro in the history of the Sino-Soviet romance (03:14)

Practical challenges of writing transnational history across area studies boundaries (05:52)

McGuire's approach to narrative in her work (09:17)

The work of the historian in a post-area-studis world (11:33)

On training grad students to think transnationally (14:30)

Projects that can be undertaken with knowledge of Russian and Chinese (17:23)

Primary intellectual influences on McGuire (21:52)

To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/21951

2010-05-24T18:49:00.000-07:00

Interview with Claudia Verhoeven, Assistant Professor of History at Cornell University. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on May 13, 2010.

Professor Verhoeven is the author of The Odd Man Karakazov: Imperial Russia, Modernity and the Birth of Modern Terrorism, published by Cornell University Press in 2009.

Interview Themes

What Verhoeven hoped to achieve with The Odd Man Karakazov (00:58)
Greatest challenge of writing the book (10:02)
How historians learn to recognize the new in history (16:29)
Primary influences on Verhoeven's research and writing thus far (24:44)
Implications of Verhoeven's work for the field of Russian history (31:38)
Recent works published that suggest what is interesting now (38:00)
Verhoeven's plans for future research (40:05)
To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/17395

2010-05-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

Interview with Igor Tchoukarine, recent Ph.D. from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on April 22, 2010.

Tchoukarine's dissertation is on tourism in socialist Yugoslavia from 1945 to the end of the 1960s.

Interview Themes

How Tchoukarine came to do research on tourism (00:45)
Comparison between French, Canadian and US academic approaches to the region (01:52)
Challenges of bringing together multiple national contexts into single doctoral thesis (04:35)
Area studies training and its benefits/drawbacks (06:55)
Tchoukarine's self-definition as historian (08:53)
Future research plans relating to the Adriatic Sea (09:52)
The important unanswered questions in the field (11:22)
Defining the Balkans as a region (14:01)
Tchoukarine's family origins as they relate to the field (16:27)
First encounters with the Adriatic Sea (24:01)
To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/17394

2010-05-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

Interview with Jeremy King, Associate Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on March 15, 2010.

Professor King is author of the book Budweisers into Czechs and Germans: A Local History of Bohemian Politics, 1848-1948, published by Princeton University Press in 2002.

Interview Themes

What brought King to the field and how his approach to it has changed over time (00:33)

On King's work as transition from national to post-national history (06:00)

Alternative loci of identity formation besides nationalism (11:17)
How we should teach the next generation about nationalism (18:12)

Territorialization of nationhood in the 20C (25:33)

How knowledge of langauges affects research and findings (37:20)

How to deal with the conceptual disappearance/invisibility of East-Central Europe (44:02)

What is yet to be done in this field (53:38)

To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/17393

2010-05-24T18:16:00.000-07:00

Interview with Bradley Abrams, independent historian (Ph.D. Stanford). Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on March 3, 2010.

Dr. Abrams is the author of Struggle for the Soul of the Nation: Czech Culture and the Rise of Communism, published in 2004. He is now working on a project on communist-era consumerism.

Interview Themes

How Abrams came to write his first book (00:50)

Reception of Abrams' work in Czech Republic/Slovakia (05:25)

Changes Abrams has observed across the 1989 threshold within the region and the field (10:45)

How the history of consumption fits into a pan-European narrative (22:15)

How we should train the next generation of graduate students (27:37)

To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/17392

2009-10-04T08:39:00.000-07:00

Interview with Alison Frank, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on September 25, 2009.

Professor Frank is the author of a number of articles and an excellent book on the oil industry in Habsburg Galicia entitled Oil Empire: Visions of Prosperity in Austrian Galicia. She is now working on a project on the Habsburg imperial port city of Trieste.

Interview Themes

How Frank chooses research topics (00:50)

Aspects of her training as a historian Frank found useful (07:00)

Books that have inspired and informed Frank's work (11:11)

On the role of area studies for scholarship on East-Central Europe (14:00)

"Internationalizing" the history of East-Central Europe (19:30)

Advice to young historians/scholars working on the region (22:11)

To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/13739

2009-06-07T18:05:00.000-07:00

Interview with István Deák, Seth Low Professor Emeritus at Columbia University. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on April 29, 2009.

István Deák has written several books on topics ranging from Weimar Germany to the 1848 Revolution in Hungary to the Habsburg Army’s officer corps to Hitler’s Europe. It is difficult to exaggerate the contribution he has made to the field of East-Central European History. There are two notable indicators of that influence, one is the Deák Chair established at Columbia in his honor, and the other the many students of his who now populate the field.

Interview Themes

Intersections between Deák's life and work, experiences in Hungary (01:08)
WWII and the Holocaust in Hungary and how Deák experienced them (03:30)
Deák's views on Hungarians' current relationship to their past (9:30)
Is there such a thing as a Hungarian Sonderweg? (14:50)
Deák on the experience of being an émigré historian (22:25)
Deák on his proudest achievement as an historian and public intellectual (27:53)
Advice to young historians/scholars working on the region (31:17)

To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/12881

2009-03-25T18:36:00.000-07:00

Interview with Christine Philliou, Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on March 23, 2009.

Dr. Philliou specializes in the political and social history of the Ottoman Empire, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries. Her forthcoming book, Biography of an Empire: Practicing Ottoman Governance in the Age of Revolutions examines Phanariot networks and their role in Ottoman Empire prior to the mid-19th century. Phanariots were an Orthodox Christian elite intimately involved in the day-to-day work of Ottoman governance, most notably in the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (present-day Romania).

Interview Themes

Southeastern Europe from the Ottomanist perspective (01:12)

What students of 20th century history can learn from studying the 18th century (03:26)

How to increase cross-over between Balkan/East European and Ottoman historians (07:39)

Coherence of the Balkans as a region to Ottomanists (09:25)

Conceptual geography of the Balkans from the Ottoman perspective (11:59)

How Philliou views the work of East Europeanists on the region (15:06)

On nostalgia about empire and the Ottoman history field (18:07)

On the "next frontier" for Ottomanists and the study of the Empire (20:44)

Strategies for training the next generation of scholars of the region (22:04)

Inspiring trends in historiography outside the field (24:01)

To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/12124

2009-03-13T16:57:00.000-07:00

Interview with Florian Bieber, lecturer in East European Politics at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on March 13, 2009.

Dr. Bieber has worked in Belgrade (Serbia) and Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina) for the European Centre for Minority Issues and has taught at the Central European University, at the University of Sarajevo and at the University of Bologna. He is also the author of a book about Serbian nationalism, entitled Nationalism in Serbia from the Death of Tito to the Fall of Milošević (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2005, in German), and another book, Post-War Bosnia: Ethnic Structure, Inequality and Governance of the Public Sector (London: Palgrave, 2006). He’s at Cornell this spring semester of 2009 as the Luigi Einaudi Chair in European and International Studies.

Interview Themes

Bieber's current book project (01:30)
Bieber's reflections on the 20th anniversary of 1989 (02:00)
On Bieber's background in political science and history (03:19)
When interdisciplinarity works best (5:22)
On the "ghettoization" of the Balkans and its causes/possible solutions (06:30)
Unique contribution of our field to other fields (09:38)
Addressing the ongoing perception of a division of Europe into "East" and "West" (12:04)
On Bieber's interest in the study of nationalism (16:17)
Is there such a thing as "good nationalism"? (19:12)
On Bieber's "European" upbringing and early education (21:34)
Bieber on experiences/opportunities all Europeans should ideally have (24:56)
On the future of Southeastern Europe (26:17)

To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/12110

2008-11-04T18:56:00.000-08:00

Interview with Vladimir Solonari, historian at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, former member of parliament in the Republic of Moldova (1990-2001), and member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (1993-2001). Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on November 4, 2008.

Dr. Solonari has written a number of articles on the history of Romania during WWII and recently completed a book manuscript entitled: Purifying the Nation: Population Exchange and Ethnic Cleansing in World War II Romania, which is due to come out in 2009.

Interview Themes

Solonari’s family history and its influence on his work (00:53)
Good research habits (05:39)
Significant events of Solonari’s lifetime and how they influenced his work (08:45)
Complexity as an outcome of historical research (14:06)
Stress on argument in American scholarship (17:03)
Importance of area studies and defining our area (20:08)
Solonari’s reflections on being a politician in Moldova during the 1990s (24:45)
Future of Moldova (29:55)
Crossing the boundary between East-Central European and Russian/Soviet history (33:42)
Possibilities of integrating East-Central European history into a broader European framework (37:38)
Most interesting directions in the field of Russian/Soviet history (40:40)

To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/11585

2008-10-26T18:15:00.000-07:00

Interview with Gábor Egry, a young historian at the Institute for Political History (Politikatörténeti Intézet) in Budapest, Hungary. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on October 26, 2008

Dr. Egry has written two books and a number of articles on the history of Hungary and Transylvania during the 19th and 20th centuries. He’s also written several thought pieces on contemporary issues for more mainstream media outlets in Hungary and Romania.

Interview Themes

The most significant historical event in Egry’s lifetime (00:50)
Hungarians and the legacy of 1956 (07:57)
The history and current mission of the Institute for Political History (12:07)
Egry’s own political convictions and how they are reflected in his work (18:00)
Situation and future of the left in Hungary (22:13)
East-Central Europe (past and present) in the broader European context (28:07)
Transatlantic scholarly collaboration (38:38)
The future of historical writing on East-Central Europe (46:26)

To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/11561