8th International Conference on History and Culture in North Eastern

8th International Conference on History and Culture in North Eastern

Dr. Jörg Hackmann
DAAD Alfred Doeblin Professor of East European History
University of Szczecin
Dept. of History and International Relations
8th International Conference on History and Culture in North Eastern Europe:
Between Reconstruction and Modernization: Public Debates about Historic
City Centers in the 20th and 21st Centuries
Tallinn, September 15-18, 2011
Organizers:
Tallinn City Archives / Tallinna Linnaarhiiv
University of Szczecin / Uniwersytet Szczeciński, Dept. of History,
DAAD Alfred Döblin Chair of East European History
Academia Baltica, Lübeck
Aue Foundation, Helsinki
Conference venue: Tallinn City Archive, public opening session with keynote address in the
Old Town Hall (Vana Raekoda)
Conference outlines:
In particular, the destructions caused by the Second World War in Europe have led to
intense professional and public debates on how to interpret the results of those devastations
as well as on guidelines for the reconstruction of historic city centers. Such discussions
emerged already immediately after the destruction and were partly related to previous concepts and debates. At the same time, these debates often became long-lasting discourses to
date and have even gained intensity in recent years, not least due to the fact that solutions
from the first phase of reconstruction after 1945 are now increasingly questioned (and partly
even demolished). Debates in Germany after 1989, if not earlier, over the reconstruction of
buildings and urban structures that had been destroyed during the Second World War reveal
that such strategies are by no means limited to Poland or the Soviet Union.1 Rather may one
detect parallel international approaches of how to deal with historic city centers, which are –
generally speaking – marked by a tension between conservation and renewal. Whereas in
the first decades after 1945 modernizing solutions prevailed, on may state that during the
past 30 years concepts of a historicizing appropriation have become increasingly important.
These debates have not only been shaped by professional arguments – of architects, city
planners or monument preservation –, but were always accompanied also by societal
1
See the recent and inspiring catalogue of an exhibition on the history of reconstruction: Winfried Nerdinger (ed.):
Geschichte der Rekonstruktion - Konstruktion der Geschichte. München: Prestel, 2010.
Uniwersytet Szczeciński Wydział Humanistyczny Instytut Historii i Stosunków Międzynarodowych www.hist.us.szn.pl ul. Krakowska 71-­‐79 71-­‐017 Szczecin POLAND tel
+48-­‐91-­‐444 3319 +49-­‐3834-­‐86-­‐80067 fax mob (D) +49-­‐173-­‐219 3277 mob (PL) +48-­‐500-­‐465 752 email: joerg.hackmann@univ.szczecin.pl 2 discourses. Their impact was particularly strong when the reconstruction went along with
social, national, economic, and political upheaval, as was the case in many parts of Central
and Eastern Europe. Besides, the second great wave of radical change connected to the end
of the state socialist systems has also had an impact on how to treat the historic city centers:
Apart from the – sometimes hardly regulated – penetration of capitalism one has to mention
– often publicly funded – reconstruction projects, in which local and partly national identity
strategies play an important role. Against this background the question of the relationship
between general and specific development factors deserves special attention.
The planned conference shall discuss social, aesthetic and political foundations and implications of these developments from 1945 to the recent past with regard to examples from the
Baltic Sea region. These issues have so far been discussed mainly for individual cities2, and
in national contexts,3 whereas comparative considerations4 have been presented so far only
to a small extent. Thus, the conference shall focus on case studies in order to contribute to a
comparison of concepts, discourses and realizations. Of particular interest will be strategies
concerning historical topographies between societal appropriation on the one hand and their
disregard as being outdated or alien5 on the other hand. Besides, it will be asked whether
one may recognize patterns of argumentation in the single discourses that transcend national
and block boundaries, such as the role of architects or conservators.
Such a regional focus on North Eastern Europe, i.e. the Baltic Sea region including Germany
and Russia, has proved to be highly fruitful already in previous conferences on the history
and culture in the European North East held in the Tallinn City Archives from 1995 to 2007,6
since it does not refer only to supposedly clear-cut historical units (the three Baltic states,
2
See for instance the research on Wrocław/Breslau (Gregor Thum), Gdańsk/Danzig (Jacek Friedrich), Szczecin/
Stettin (Jan Musekamp) und Königsberg/Kaliningrad (Per Brodersen and Bert Hoppe).
3
Janusz Bogdanowski (ed.): Miasto historyczne w dialogu ze wspólczesnością. Gdańsk: Nadbałtyckie Centrum
Kultury, Wydział Architektury Politechniki Gdańskiej, 2002.
4
Here, one should mention: John Czaplicka et al. (eds.): Composing Urban History and the Constitution of Civic
Identities. Washington, D.C., Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2003;
John Czaplicka et al. (eds.): Cities after the Fall of Communism: Reshaping Cultural Landscapes and
European Identity. Washington, D.C., Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2009; and Thomas M. Bohn (ed.): Von der "europäischen Stadt" zur "sozialistischen Stadt" und zurück?
Urbane Transformationen im östlichen Europa des 20. Jahrhunderts. Vorträge der gemeinsamen Tagung des
Collegium Carolinum und des Johann Gottfried Herder-Forschungsrats in Bad Wiessee vom 23. bis 26.
November 2006, München 2009.
5
See for instance the reflections by Thomas Serrier: Formen kultureller Aneignung: Städtische Meistererzählungen in Nordosteuropa zwischen Nationalisierung und Pluralisierung. In: Nordost-Archiv N.F. 15 (2006), 13-23.
6
1995: Robert Schweitzer, Waltraud Bastman-Bühner (eds.): Der Finnische Meerbusen als Brennpunkt. Wandern
und Wirken deutschsprachiger Menschen im europäischen Nordosten. Helsinki, Lübeck: Schmidt-Römhild,
1998
1998: Robert Schweitzer, Waltraud Bastman-Bühner, Jörg Hackmann (eds.): Die Stadt im europäischen
Nordosten. Kulturbeziehungen von der Ausbreitung des Lübischen Rechts bis zur Aufklärung. Helsinki,
Lübeck: Aue-Stiftung, 2001
2001: Jörg Hackmann, Robert Schweitzer (eds.): Nordosteuropa als Geschichtsregion. Helsinki, Lübeck: AueStiftung, Schmidt-Römhild, 2006
2004: Jörg Hackmann (ed.): Vereinskultur und Zivilgesellschaft in Nordosteuropa. (Quellen und Studien zur
baltischen Geschichte. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, [in print]
2007: Jörg Hackmann, Marko Lehti (eds.): Special Issue: Contested and Shared Places of Memory. History
and Politics in North Eastern Europe. (Journal of Baltic Studies, 39, 4). London: Routledge, 2008; Jörg
Hackmann, Marko Lehti (eds.): Contested and Shared Places of Memory. History and Politics in North Eastern
Europe. London: Routledge, 2010.
3 Northern Europe, Poland, Russia, etc.), but rather focuses on the dense history of mutual
relations and entanglements.
Besides, the conference will not be confined to the historical and art historical significance of
the topic. It will be also related to current discussions as urban planning in historic city
centers is always connected to judgments about historic structures. Against this background
the conference "Between Reconstruction and Modernization: Public Debates about Historic
City Centers in the 20th and 21th Centuries” will be supported by the City of Tallinn as part of
the program of Tallinn as European Capital of Culture in 2011.
The conference will consist of four sections:
•
•
•
•
Legacies and appropriations. Public debates on historic city centers
Modern redesigns of historic city centers
Reconstructions and the return of historic topographies
(Re-)constructing nations
The conference is directed to experts in the fields of urban history: (architecture and art)
historians as well as experts in cultural and social studies.
Conference languages will be German and English. As with the previous conferences on
history and culture in North Eastern Europe, a public event with a keynote address on the
first day will be part of the conference program. A publication of selected conference papers
is planned.