Eastern European Cultures and Heritage in a Global Perspective

The Theme Group Eastern European Cultures and Heritage in a Global Perspective, based at the Research Centre for the Study of Democratic Cultures and Politics (DemCP), University of Groningen, provides a platform for conducting research, education and outreach activities engaging with cultural processes in the historical and geopolitical region of Eastern Europe. We focus on the practices of tangible and intangible heritage in Eastern Europe in the broadest sense, including countries and regions of Southeastern and Central Europe as well as Eurasia. Our research group places a particular emphasis on an interdisciplinary approach to inquiry into Eastern Europe, and we seek to actively expand our work to include PhD and MA students of the region.

During the past few decades, since the fall of communism in Europe, and especially in recent years due to the war of aggression waged by Russia in Ukraine, Eastern Europe and its complex histories and cultural entanglements have come into the focus of public debate and academic inquiry on questions of global significance and urgency. We engage in these wide-ranging debates from the distinct perspectives in, firstly, critical memory and heritage studies and, secondly, the study of political, social and historical entanglements which connect Eastern Europe and its different parts with other regions. The work of our group focuses on but is not limited to the following questions: What is the contemporary understanding of the concept of Eastern Europe – what are the historical implications of the discourse, and what are its prevalent issues? How can we understand the legacies and present-day manifestations of different imperial formations (the Russian, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, the Soviet Union, the Cold War blocs) in this region, and how are they globally entangled? How do various ‘uses’ of the past – manifest in cultural and heritage practices – shape socio-political processes and identities within and beyond the region? Furthermore, how are identities formed and produced in the context of Eastern European history, particularly as pertaining to material and immaterial heritage?

We conduct the following activities: workshops and lectures, grant writing meetings, peer review, and match-making for researchers looking for grant partners, organizing joint activities with other groups, and other activities proposed by group members. We aim to organize two activities per semester – proposals are open to all group members.

Coordinators: Ksenia Robbe and Maja Babic

Members (alphabetically):

• Dr. Maja Babic (coordinator, History of Art, Architecture and Landscape)
• Dr. Sandra Banjac (Media and Journalism Studies)
• Kseniia Bespalova (PhD candidate, Film and Contemporary Audiovisual Media)
• Alsu Buiting (European Languages and Cultures, Language Learning)
• Dr. Lisa Gaufman (European Politics and Society)
• Dr. Eske van Gils (IRIO, Global Politics of Europe)
• Marina Grisko (PhD candidate, European Culture and Literature)
• Dr. Yuliya Kazanova (Linguistics and English as Second Language)
• Lilit Khandakaryan (PhD candidate, European Culture and Literature)
• Dr. Senka Neuman-Stanivukovic (IRIO, Global International Relations)
• Dr. Ksenia Robbe (coordinator, European Culture and Literature)
• Rose Smith (PhD candidate, European Culture and Literature)