ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION: Scholars as Public Intellectuals Weighing in on History and Politics in East Central Europe (ASN Roundtable)

This is a recording of a roundtable discussion from the ASN (Association for the Study of Nationalities) 2013 annual convention at Columbia University on the theme of "Scholars as Public Intellectuals Weighing in on History and Politics in East Central Europe." It was recorded on April 19, 2013. 

The roundtable participants included Katherine Fleming (History, NYU), Florian Bieber (Political Science, University of Graz, Austria), Timothy Snyder (History, Yale), Kim Scheppele (International Affairs, Princeton), and István Deák (History-Emeritus, Columbia), with myself (Holly Case) as organizer and chair.

Roundtable Themes

Introduction of panelists (0:55)
How do you understand your own role as a public intellectual and which context do you see yourself as operating in primarily? (8:00) Fleming (8:55), Bieber (10:07), Snyder (12:40), Scheppele (17:06), Deák (18:37)
Who sets the agenda for public debate? How have events in East-Central Europe affected your career trajectory as public intellectuals? (21:52) Fleming (23:22), Bieber (24:55), Snyder (28:05), Scheppele (32:00), Deák (35:00)
What is your relationship to the country/countries that are the focus of your interventions as a public intellectual? (38:15) Fleming (39:08), Bieber (41:59), Snyder (45:23), Scheppele (49:55), Deák (54:22)
Why is it that women remain underrepresented among public intellectuals? (58:52) Fleming (59:54), Bieber (1:01:00), Snyder (1:01:38), Scheppele (1:03:17)
Audience questions: Do public intellectuals who do not speak up when people are spreading lies about history in effect legitimize those lies? (1:05:38) How has the social demand for public intellectuals evolved as a result of digital technologies? (1:08:44) How effective are the interventions of public intellectuals in influencing public attitudes/debate? (1:09:55) How do you represent your own country/culture to people from outside? (1:10:34) Deák (1:11:35), Scheppele (1:15:50), Snyder (1:19:34), Bieber (1:24:44), Fleming (1:29:13)
Audience questions: On the role of the post-communist transition in pushing women into the background (1:35:44) Why have most East-Central European economies struggled since the collapse of communism? (1:37:54) How much does engagement in public history influence academic writing? (1:39:35) Fleming (1:40:35), Bieber (1:42:17), Snyder (1:44:52), Scheppele (1:50:25), Deák (1:55:37)
To access roundtable discussion, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/33424

Interview with Dennis Deletant--April 4, 2013

Interview with Dennis Deletant, Professor Emeritus of Romanian Studies at the University College London and now the Visiting Ratiu Professor of Romanian Studies at Georgetown University. Interview conducted in Washington, D.C. on April 4, 2013.

Deletant has written a number of books and articles on Romanian history of the twentieth century, including Hitler's Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu and his regime, Romania 1940-1944, published by Palgrave in 2006 and recently translated into Romanian. 

Interview Themes

How Deletant came to be interested in Romania in the mid-1960s (2:10)

Deletant's approach to the issue of "backwardness" in Romanian historiography (4:59)
What changed in Romania over the period of Deletant's study of it (10:45)
British views of Romania in the 1960s and '70s (15:25)
On what Deletant wanted his British students to know about Romania (16:09)
On the legacy of British scholars like Hugh Seton-Watson and R.W. Seton-Watson and others (18:24)
The 1980s in Deletant's career and Romanian history (23:36)
Writing about the difficult periods of Romanian history as a labor of love for Deletant (28:23)
Can the model of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past) that we associate with Western Germany after WWII be "exported" to East-Central Europe? [on the role of the C.N.S.A.S. - National Council for the Study of the Archives of the Securitate] (33:52)
How Deletant came to get access to select Securitate (Romanian communist secret service) documents in 1993 (41:10)
On Deletant's own Securitate file (53:54)
Deletant's role as a Romanian expert giving interviews with the BBC (1:02:43)
Recent developments in Romania that are cause for concern (1:04:23)
Would there be a place for dissidence in Romania now? (1:07:00)
Was the 1989 revolution in Romania a real revolution? (1:08:40)
Deletant's sense of what scholars should be addressing now when writing about Romanian history and politics (1:10:08)
To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/33423

Interview with Valerie Bunce--February 22, 2013

Interview with Valerie Bunce, the Aaron Binenkorb Professor of International Studies and Professor of Government at Cornell University. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on February 22, 2013.

Bunce's work is mainly in comparative politics and international relations, with a geographical emphasis on East-Central Europe, the Balkans and the Soviet successor states. She’s the author of many articles and the book Subversive Institutions: The Design and the Collapse of Socialism and the State (published by Cambridge University Press in 1999), and has written another book together with Sharon Wolchik titled Defeating Authoritarian Leaders in Postcommunist Countries (Cambridge, 2011).

Interview Themes

What brought Bunce to study the region (1:40)

On how a scholar's background relates to his/her disciplinary proclivities (3:50)

Bunce's formative early experiences and travels to Southeastern Europe [Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia] in the early 1970s (5:06)

Events of the past decades that have left a lasting impression on Bunce [Solidarity, collapse of Yugoslavia] (9:58)

The biggest surprises in the trajectory of the region since Bunce started studying it (20:07)

How the upheavals in the region have affected scholarly approaches to it (21:50)

Fallout in the field of Soviet studies of the collapse of the Soviet Union (25:03)

The national question under communism in the USSR and East-Central Europe (30:00)

Will the national question go away in the foreseeable future? (32:57)

Bunce's view on the nature of the interplay between policy/politics and culture (35:15)

Bunce's experiences with the policy world and the language used in academic vs. policy circles (36:57)

On knowledge of the region and democracy promotion (41:28)

Does the knowledge we have about the region give us special insight into what has taken place/is taking place elsewhere [Egypt]? (44:19)

On political scientists' growing lack of knowledge of the region's history (47:55)

Are "one-party" states back? (53:03)

Comparison of the situation in Russia and Hungary--is it remembering or forgetting communist party strategies in the two cases? (56:53)

How important is Southeastern Europe to Russian/Soviet history? (1:00:41)

What are the directions we can go with knowledge of this region in comparative terms? (1:04:10)

How does one know if a revolution/transition to democracy/authoritarianism is decisive or temporary? (1:07:04)

On training the next generation for work in this field (1:09:29)

Bunce mourns the loss of eccentricity in the younger generation of scholars and reflects on its causes (1:13:08)

To access the interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/33422

Interview with Wayles Browne--February 8, 2013

Interview with Wayles Browne, professor of linguistics at Cornell University. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on February 8, 2013.

Browne is a Slavic linguist specializing in Serbo-Croatian (or BCS - Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian). He has published on a variety of themes in Slavic and general linguistics and has taught nearly every Eastern European language during his time at Cornell. 

Interview Themes

On studying Slavic at Harvard in the time of Roman Jakobson (1:50)

Linguistics as an interdisciplinary field (10:47)

What is language? (12:55)

How languages evolve and become standardized (18:30)

Language as a national symbol and its relation to conflict (23:43)

Observing the fall of Yugoslavia as a linguist and someone with an attachment to the region (25:00)

On what drew people to Yugoslavia in the 1970s (29:30)

How Browne experienced Yugoslav federalism and its benefits/shortcomings (32:15)

Languages and dialects, from Slovene to Genoese (38:00)

Commonalities between Balkan/Southeastern European languages and languages that borrow structures--rather than simply vocabulary--from other languages (45:01)

Delights and challenges of translation from BCS (53:45)

What Browne has found gratifying in his career (57:47)

Changes in the field of linguistics and how Browne relates to them (1:03:25)

[apologies for the abrupt end to the interview due to a technical failure]

To access the interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/33421

HISTORY IN THE MAKING--Greece

Interviews with Alexandra Tsekeri and Dimitris, neighborhood assembly members and political activists in Athens, Greece. Interviews conducted in Athens, Greece on January 12, 2013.

These are the first in an informal series called "History in the Making," which includes interviews with individuals who are engaged in political activism or are otherwise living through events unfolding in East-Central and Southeastern Europe.

Interview Themes

Alexandra Tsekeri

PART I: Alexandra Tsekeri (in a cafe)

On neighborhood assemblies and their activities (1:30)

The nature of the Pangrati (Παγκράτι) neighborhood of Athens (3:42)

On how politics can be "read" from someone's appearance (8:45)

What is the "ideal community" that members of neighborhood assemblies are trying to create? (11:05)

On Tsekeri's experiences in New York and why she came back to Greece (19:02)

On events in Athens since 2008 and why she got involved in the neighborhood assembly (25:15)

Tsekeri speaks of her views on the Occupy movement in New York (30:50)

What was different about the protests at Syntagma Square 2010/2011 (34:40)

Tsekeri's views on the state and what it should (or shouldn't) do (41:57)

The differences in the political climate in different cities in Greece--Athens, Ioannina, Thessaloniki, Volos (48:58)

Local versus international influences on Tsekeri's political views and activism (50:54)

What are the functional alternative models to mainstream politics in Greece and elsewhere? (53:50)

On what the neighborhood assemblies do (58:25)

What is the goal of neighborhood assemblies in terms of community involvement? (1:14:05)

To access the interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/33420

Neighborhood assembly member putting up a poster of
solidarity with the Villa Amalias

PART II-Dimitris (at the clothing exchange)

How the neighborhood assemblies came into existence in 2008 (0:40)

On the role of neighborhood assemblies: not charity, not the state (8:50)

Positive historical and other models for the activism of today (10:38)

How neighborhood assemblies have evolved since 2008 (13:40)

What neighborhood assemblies should do in the future (14:42)

On people's responses to the emergence of neighborhood assemblies (16:08)

Dimitris's views on the extreme right (Golden Dawn) in Greece and its supporters (17:29)

How can politics confront the fear of the people about the future? (20:22)

What kinds of people are attracted to neighborhood assemblies? (21:41)

On the rhetoric of "crisis as opportunity" (23:39)

How to maintain political/organizational energy after Syntagma (25:08)

Dimitris's views on electoral politics (26:53)

On what it means to be an anarchist (27:40)

On what it is that Dimitris is fighting against (30:58)

Benefits to the individual and to the community of involvement in the movement (32:00)

Could these initiatives serve as a model for people in other places? (33:40)

On Dimitris's skepticism vis-a-vis the Occupy movement (34:46)

To access the interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/33420

Interview with Vangelis Kechriotis--June 22, 2011

Interview with Vangelis Kechriotis of the History faculty at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey. Interview conducted in Istanbul, Turkey on June 22, 2011.

Kechriotis specializes in late Ottoman history, Christian and Jewish communities in the Balkans and elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, nationalism, and Ottoman urban history and imperial ideology. His dissertation, completed in 2005, is entitled: "The Greeks of Izmir at the end of the Empire a non-Muslim Ottoman Community between autonomy and Patriotism." 

Interview Themes

PART I

On how Kechriotis came to study late Ottoman history (1:30)
Why Greeks became more interested in Ottoman history after 1999/2000 (8:20)
On the fruit of the recent convergence of young Greek and Turkish scholars on late Ottoman history (12:00)
Kechriotis’ take on how Greeks and Turks relate to that history and his work on Izmir (16:05)
Can a good historian do politics? Is there a politics that allows for the inclusion of detail? (41:05)

PART II

What is the historian's role in bringing societies to a meaningful engagement with their past (0:00)
How we should be training the next generation of historians in the field (6:55)
Kechriotis' long-term scholarly agenda (13:40)
To access the interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/30797

Interview with James Ward--March 22, 2012

Interview with James Ward, scholar of modern East-Central European history and lecturer of modern European history at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Interview conducted in Belfast, Northern Ireland on March 22, 2012. 

James is the author of the forthcoming book Priest, Politician, Collaborator: Jozef Tiso and the Making of Fascist Slovakia. Tiso was the priest-president of wartime Slovakia. That book is coming out with Cornell University Press sometime in spring of 2013. 

Interview Themes

How Ward came to work on Jozef Tiso (1:18) 

How Ward's biography of Tiso developed over time (5:10)

On Ward's historical interests beyond East-Central Europe, including Manila in the Philippines (15:45)

Ward's next project on the East-Central European history of expropriation (22:58)

Ward on what should be happening in the field of East-Central European history (27:36)

On teaching East-Central European and Russian/Soviet history in Belfast (30:15)

To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/30796

Interview with Balázs Apor--March 23, 2012

Interview with Balázs Apor, Director of the MPhil program in European Studies at Trinity College Dublin. Interview conducted in Dublin, Ireland on March 23, 2012. 

Balázs Apor specializes in the history of East-Central Europe under communism, especially on the leader cult. He has co-edited two volumes, including The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships: Stalin and the Eastern Bloc (2004), and The Sovietization of Eastern Europe: New Perspectives on the Postwar Period (2008). He is currently at work on a monograph on the leader cult of the Hungarian Stalinist Mátyás Rákosi. 

Interview Themes   

How Apor came to the study of communist leader cults (1:00) 

How Apor's view of Rákosi and the leader cult has changed since starting work on it (2:20)
How the assessment of Rákosi’s legacy has changed (or not) since 1956 (4:00)

On the inadequacy of the term "cult of personality" versus "leader cult" (7:45)
On the challenges of doing research on Rákosi's leader cult and what Apor found in his research that surprised him (11:15)

The extent to which people were willing participants in leader cults and why (18:30) 
Comparison of Rákosi to other leaders like Miklós Horthy and Imre Nagy in terms of leader cults (29:25)

On whether writing about the leader cult speaks to how Hungarians come to terms with their own history (45:15) 

On teaching East-Central European history in Ireland and where the field is headed (49:05)

To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/30795

Interview with Joachim von Puttkamer--December 6, 2011

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

Interview with Taner Akçam--November 8, 2010

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

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

Akçam's arrest and the issues that brought him into politics in the 1970s (16:09)
How Akçam saw the Turkish state in the 1970s (20:48)
Early responses to the work of Akçam 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)
Akçam'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