Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) at Södertörn University is pleased to inform you about CBEES Annual Conference 2019: Central and Eastern Europe 1989-2019: Orders and Freedoms.

The purpose is to commemorate and problematize the 30th anniversary of the year 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall. The conference will be dedicated to this event and its effects in the aftermath, especially in connection with the end of the Cold War and the Europeanization of the former Second world. Due to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Eastern Bloc, 1989 is often remembered as a time of euphoria and enthusiasm. The former communist states were supposedly “returning to Europe” and moving towards freedom and democracy within the framework of the European Union. However, since then, development has been far from euphoric: it would seem that a combination of Euroscepticism, populism, nationalism and authoritarianism is tearing the region apart. What remains of “1989”, and where do we go from here? What is important to remember and what has been left to oblivion? The aim of this conference is to discuss events, policies and ideas in the shaping of the contemporary European order in the social, political and cultural spheres.

This year’s annual conference will be organized by CBEES in collaboration with two other leading centers for Eastern European, Russian, and Eurasian studies at Lund and Uppsala universities. It is divided to sections inviting papers on the following topics:

• Continuity and change of Soviet legacies
• Post-Soviet and new identities
• National-conservative Challenges to the European Integration – East Central Europe in focus
• The Legacy of the anti-Communist opposition in contemporary Eastern and Central Europe
• Europes in Transformation: Everyday experiences and Aesthetic expressions between Enthusiasm and Disillusionment
• Beyond the European crises: new visions and practices of solidarity in East Central Europe
• Memory and Memorialization

Keynote speakers

• Lavinia Stan: Jules Leger Research Chair and Professor, Department of Political Science, St. Francis Xavier University
• Judith Pallot: Professor (emeritus) Christ Church and University of Oxford, Director of Research, University of Helsinki, President of BASEES (British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies)

Pre-conference witness seminar:

Prior to the conference there will be a witness seminar held at Södertörn University: Tear down this wall: feminists revisit the break-ups and breakthroughs of 1989

Organizing Committee

Ann-Mari Sätre

Barbara Törnqvist-Plewa

Irina Sandomirskaja

Tora Lane