THE HISTORIAN FACING CATASTROPHE

Opening of the conference

Excerpts from the film about Arseny Roginsky "The Right to Remember" (directed by Lyudmila Gordon)

Round table "The Historian Facing Catastrophe"
Moderator: Mikhail Fishman
With Ludmila Ulitskaya, Andrzej Friszke, Irina Shcherbakova, Ralph Fücks

Maniucha i Ksawery concert

Section I: The Historian as a Contemporary of Catastrophe

Moderator: Dariusz Stola

Referring to the past for political purposes is nothing new, but this phenomenon has reached a whole new level in the context of Russia's aggression against Ukraine. Today, history is extensively used and often instrumentalized as an explanatory model for what is happening and as a matrix for predicting the future.

The work of human rights activists and lawyers recording war crimes is of obvious practical importance. But what can and should the historian do in this situation?

How does what is happening today affect the study of the past, including the study of the wars of the 20th century? And how can the experience we have available of analyzing the past be used to document and evaluate the present? Is it possible to make historical sense of what is happening in the heat of the moment, in the present hour, and what can the historian do in these conditions? How can the historian resist fakes and the instrumentalization of history?

Alexander Cherkasov: Documentation of Crimes in Chechnya and the Future History of the Chechen Wars

Niccolo Pianciola: Fascism, Genocide, Colonialism: Historical Concepts and the Public Sphere in Wartime

Barbara Engelking: Polish Society during the Holocaust. New questions for the history of this period from today

Roman Podkur: How does the current war change the way Ukrainian historians look at the country's history?

Hanna Liubakova: The War in Ukraine and Modern Belarusian Society


Coffee break

Discussion of the papers

Break

Section II: The Day after the Catastrophe

Moderator: Catherine Gousseff

As the experience of 20th century conflict studies shows, post-war societies face many challenges: the social re-adaptation of combatants and victims of violence, the crisis of values, collective trauma, the demand for justice and the legal regulation of conflict. Can historical experience provide clues for resolving the tragedy being experienced today? Overcoming the consequences of humanitarian catastrophes requires long, in-depth work by political actors, lawyers, human rights activists, civil society representatives, psychologists, cultural figures. What can historical insight provide for those who will take part in this lengthy processing of the tragic past? We invite the participants in this section to look at their field of study in relation to the challenges posed by modern warfare.

Marcin Zaremba: The Demoralization of Post-War Society. The European situation after 1945 as an example

Marta Havryshko: Women's Experiences of Violence in War

Georgy Kasyanov: Future Historical Memory and Issues affecting its Formation

Evgenia Lyozina: Consequences of the Refusal to Provide a Legal Response to the Crimes of the Soviet Period in Russia


Discussion

Coffee break

Section III. Roundtable "Art as a Form of Resistance and Interpreting War"

Moderator: Peter Ripson

What role does culture play in imperial projects and (post-)colonial wars? How does war affect the perception of past culture? What are the possibilities of art and artists in conflict and how are they used today by artistic communities in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia? What happens when artistic works act as testimony and the documentary becomes a form of artistic expression? How can history and historians work with such evidence?

Participants: Alexander Sorin, Zmicer Vainovsky, Marina Davydova, Matvey Weisberg, Karine Arutyunova