CFP: 1956, Resistance and Cultural Opposition in East Central Europe

http://www.hunghist.org/index.php/call-for-articles/313-call-for-journal

Call for Publications The Hungarian Historical Review invites submissions for its fourth issue in 2016, the theme of which will be “1956, Resistance and Cultural Opposition in East Central Europe.” The deadline for the submission of abstracts: January 15, 2016.

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).

We invite the submission of abstracts on the questions and topics raised above.

We provide proofreading for contributors who are not native speakers of English.

Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words and a short biographical sketch with a selected list of the author’s five most important publications (we do not accept full CVs). Proposals should be submitted by email to hunghist@btk.mta.hu

The editors will ask the authors of selected papers (max. 10 000 words) to submit their final articles no later than June 16, 2016. The articles will be published after a peer-review process.

All articles must conform to our submission guidelines: http://hunghist.org/index.php/for-authors.

The Hungarian Historical Review is a peer-reviewed international journal of the social sciences and humanities the geographical focus of which is Hungary and East-Central Europe.

For additional information, including submission guidelines, please visit the journal’s website

The Hungarian Historical Review is published quarterly by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute of History, 30 Országház utca, Budapest H – 1014, Hungary

Share this