Call for Journal Articles: 1956, Resistance and Cultural Opposition in East Central Europe
Posted on 12 January, 2016 in1989 Communism Eastern Europe Socialism
The deadline for submissions of abstracts for the 4th issue of Hungarian Historical Review on 1956, Resistance and Cultural Opposition in East Central Europe is fast approaching.
Abstracts of 500 words and a short biography listing the author’s five most important publications should be submitted by the January 15, 2016. Those selected will then be asked to submit their final articles no later than June 16, 2016, with the articles being published following a peer-review process. The call for journal articles can be found below:
Call for Journal Articles: 1956, Resistance and Cultural Opposition in East Central Europe
Since 1989, former socialist countries have been in the process of constructing and negotiating their relationships with their recent past, which includes their stories of resistance, revolts and cultural opposition. Opposition is typically understood in a narrow sense as referring to open political resistance to communist governments. We propose a more nuanced historical conception of resistance, opposition and revolts, expanding the concept towards broader frameworks of political participation in order to facilitate a better understanding of how dissent and criticism were possible in the former socialist regimes of Eastern Europe.
Since the authorities tried to control public spheres and there were no opportunities for democratic public debates, several critical movements (democratic, Church related or nationalist opposition) decided to establish underground public spheres and declared open opposition to the socialist state. However, several cultural groups with no open political program (e. g. avant-garde art, alternative religious communities, youth culture) were also regarded as forms of opposition and branded as such by the authorities, and, as a result, they were also forced underground.
Possible topics include:
– Individuals, institutions, groups and networks of cultural opposition;
– New perspectives of revolts (1956, 1968, 1981) against the Communist regimes;
– Members of the “hard-core” democratic opposition, who were banned during the socialist
period (including the world of samizdat publications, art movements, and non-official
lectures);
– Activities and networks of elite and intellectual groups of the opposition;
– Radical and experimental theatre;
– Underground and non-conformist youth and popular culture;
– Religious groups and institutions and their roles in the opposition;
– Cultural and scientific institutions, which implemented the research agenda of the opposition
(e.g. research on poverty in the communist regimes).